The Turkish flag was stained with the blood of the young man holding it up. He had been waving it when he was shot by soldiers who carried out last summer’s attempted coup. Handing over the torn national banner to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he declared: “I want to give it to you because you are the one who would know how to really value something so precious.”

The encounter, at the headquarters of the ruling AK Party, was stage-managed, but the emotions behind the coming commemoration of the first anniversary of the failed coup were real enough. Turkey’s President and his followers were celebrating victory over the “15 July Plotters”, but they were also mourning the 249 who died and the 2,200 wounded when the people took to the streets against the aircraft, tanks and helicopter-gunships of the mutinous troops.

There is also anger directed at enemies, real and perceived, home and abroad. There have been mass purges since the takeover – blamed on the followers of the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen – was thwarted. Tens of thousands are in prison; others have been sacked from their jobs; some have fled into exile. At the same time simmering tension and confrontation with Kurdish separatists of the PKK has turned into a full-blown military conflict. And with it, say critics, has come more political suppression.

The Turkish government has been widely attacked by human rights organisations and politicians in the West over the punitive measures enacted. Mr Erdogan and his supporters have railed against the criticism as unjust and hypocritical, even alleging signs of racism and Islamophobia. Amid the accusations and recriminations, plans for the country to join the European Union seem to be slipping further away than ever.

Dissent internally has been muted following the waves of arrests. But hundreds of thousands gathered at a rally in Istanbul last Sunday evening in a “revolt against injustice”. There were cheers for Kemal Kilindaroglu, the leader of the opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP), who led the march to the city from Ankara. The huge showing, he declared, was a “rebirth for us, for our country and our children”.

Mr Erdogan lashed out about the Istanbul rally at the party headquarters in Ankara. The CHP and their supporters, he charged, “could be accused of being terrorist lovers, who carried out their walk for Gulen, for the PKK. They say their march is comparable with the martyrs and those who gave their blood for democracy fighting the coup. They are shameless hypocrites.”

In front of the adulatory crowd, who chanted his name and broke into prolonged applause, the President continued: “They walked 450km in this march of theirs; did they spend four and a half minutes of that time thinking about those killed by terrorists? We are the ones who care about those who suffered; we are the ones fighting the terrorists.”

The ongoing conflict meant there would be no end to the state of emergency which was brought in for a year after the attempted coup. Just hours before Mr Erdogan spoke on Tuesday, 14 more army officers were arrested and arrest warrants were issued for 51 people, including 34 former employees of the state broadcaster TRT. Among those arrested the next day was Ali Avci, a film producer, who made a documentary about President Erdogan along with one called The Awakening about the failed coup. He was accused by the authorities of having links to the “Gulenist Terror Organisation”.

“There can be no question of lifting emergency rule with all this happening,” said the President. “We will lift the emergency rule only when we no longer need to fight terrorism.

“The terrorists will be punished legally and until this happens, the court list will grow.” At present 50,000 remain detained and 150,000 have been sacked or suspended from the armed forces, civil service and the private sector.

The Turkish government is attempting to extradite Mr Gulen who had been living in Pennsylvania since 1999 and was, until last summer, an ally of the AK Party. Mr Erdogan, who has vowed to pursue the cleric “to the end”, asked the newly elected Donald Trump for help in sending him back. But there has been little progress on the legal action, with Justice Department officials in Washington privately saying that despite sending a voluminous amount of material, Ankara has been short on providing incriminating evidence.

Mr Gulen, in a rare public statement, said this week that he is prepared to return to Turkey if the US agrees to extradition. But he insisted once again that he was innocent. “To this day, I have stood against all coups. My respect for the military aside, I have always been against interventions,” he stated. “If any one among those soldiers had called me and told me of their plan, I would tell them ‘you are committing murder’.” The cleric accused Mr Erdogan of being the real “oppressor who caused all this suffering and oppressed thousands of innocents. I want to spit on his face.”

The impasse over the Gulen extradition is a major source of complaints about the West from the Turkish government. “If there was a coup attempt in the US and the person who organised it was living in Turkey we know exactly what the Americans will say and do,” Bekir Bozdag, the justice minister, pointed out.

In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Show all 17 1 /17 In pictures: Turkey coup attempt In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish President Erdogan attends the funeral service for victims of the thwarted coup in Istanbul at Fatih mosque on July 17, 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey Burak Kara/Getty Images In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Soldiers involved in the coup attempt surrender on Bosphorus bridge with their hands raised in Istanbul on 16 July, 2016 Gokhan Tan/Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt A civilian beats a soldier after troops involved in the coup surrendered on the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, 16 July, 2016 REUTERS/Murad Sezer In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Surrendered Turkish soldiers who were involved in the coup are beaten by a civilian Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Soliders involved in the coup attempt surrender on Bosphorus bridge Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wave flags as they capture a Turkish Army vehicle Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt People pose near a tank after troops involved in the coup surrendered on the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, 16 July, 2016 Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish soldiers block Istanbul's Bosphorus Brigde Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt A Turkish military stands guard near the Taksim Square in Istanbul Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Pierre Crom/Twitter In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish soldiers secure the area as supporters of Recep Tayyip Erdogan protest in Istanbul's Taksim square AP In pictures: Turkey coup attempt People demonstrate in front of the Republic Monument at the Taksim Square in Istanbul Murad Sezer/Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish soldiers detain police officers during a security shutdown of the Bosphorus Bridge Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish Army armoured personnel carriers in the main streets of Istanbul Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Chaos reigned in Istanbul as tanks drove through the streets EPA/TOLGA BOZOGLU In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks to media in the resort town of Marmaris Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Supporters of President Erdogan celebrate in Ankara following the suppression of the attempted coup Reuters

“We have sent them all the documents, so why is he not being extradited? People in US and Europe know about Bin Laden, well we know about Gulen. I personally know all about the putsch. I was speaking in parliament when they bombed it and a bomb landed 15 to 20 metres from me. I am lucky to be here today,” he added.

The US and Europe, meanwhile, was quick to raise “so-called human rights abuses” Mr Bozdag said. “They lecture us on abiding by the law. But everything we are doing is by the law. They talk about torture and mistreatment of prisoners. But when we say ‘tell us where this is taking place and to who’, they do not provide anything. Sometimes they choose to believe the lies told by the guilty people. No one who is innocent is going to prison.”

Belgin Aksoy has become used to such assertions. “There is no point in even trying to argue against things like that, black is white and white is black in Turkey now. I just get on with what I need to do”, she said. All her time is devoted to working for the release of her husband, arrested in the crackdown following the coup, facing up to 45 years in prison on charges of belonging to the “Fethullah Terrorist Organisation”.

Her husband Demir used to work as a civil servant before being accused of being a Gulenist “sleeper” and detained last October when police smashed into their home in Istanbul late at night. The judge who was investigating him was arrested for allegedly being a Gulenist three months later. The new judge handling the case has warned Ms Aksoy that the process will be slow because of his huge workload. The government has announced that 175 new prisons needed to be built this year.