In Turkey, a mass trial has begun for nearly 500 people who are accused of orchestrating last year’s failed military coup. The defendants include army generals, pilots and Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish dissident who is living in the Poconos, in Pennsylvania, and is being tried in absentia. If convicted, the suspects face life in prison. Turkish {resident Recep Tayyip Erdogan has used the failed military coup as a pretext to launch a widescale crackdown against dissidents, human rights activists, journalists, opposition lawmakers and Kurds in Turkey.