ANKARA — Humbled by a series of coup trials and a gutsy government, Turkey’s military is now called to account by a most unfamiliar quarter — a growing civic movement demanding answers on a suicide spree among soldiers, suspicious deaths and widespread complaints of ill-treatment in the barracks.

In Turkey, where the draft is compulsory, conscripts had for decades returned with stories of draconian discipline, daily torment and heavy-handed commanders acting with impunity. But as the military enjoyed an untouchable status shielded with laws, accounts of abusive practices became no more than soldier folklore retold to relatives and friends. A nation that takes pride in military service, Turks would take maltreatment for granted and even see it as a rite of passage to manhood.

But now that the military’s clout has waned dramatically, grievances long suppressed are bursting out. A civic group called the Platform for Soldier Rights has redefined the issue as a problem of human rights, mobilized parliament and turned up pressure for reform in NATO’s second-largest standing army.

The campaign has resulted in the alarming revelation that hundreds of soldiers commit suicide in the barracks each year. According to official figures that came to light last year, more than 2,200 soldiers have killed themselves in the last 20 years, meaning an average of one suicide every three or four days. Some officials have sought to play down the problem, arguing that other countries have encountered similar phenomena and that the suicide rate in the army corresponds to the rate of civilian suicides in the 20-24 age group. The Platform for Soldier Rights, however, insists that it is two-and-a-hal- times higher and closely linked to maltreatment, beatings and mobbing practices in the army. The number of soldier suicides in the past decade — 934 — has surpassed the army’s death toll from clashes with Kurdish rebels at 818.