Executives of BirGün face jail time over a report on a demonstration held in Turkey in 2015
Our newspaper BirGün’s publisher İbrahim Aydın and member of editorial board (former managing editor) Berkant Gültekin have been in Kırklareli Prison of Turkey since Monday (May 29) to serve for their jail time, which they were sentenced to because of reporting on a protest by educators in Turkey back in 2015.
Aydın and Gültekin were sentenced to 21 months long jail time in reference to Turkish Penal Code’s article 299, which involves ‘insults to the president.’
The report published on 13 February 2015, over which Aydın and Gültekin are charged, included slogans chanted by protestors who consisted of tens of thousands of people, including teachers, students, parents, and members of several civil society groups, as wells as, representatives from opposition parties CHP and HDP.
During the demonstration where the participants demanded ‘an education system that is secular and based on science’, several slogans were chanted. At certain points, demonstrators shouted ‘Erdoğan is a thief and a murderer’. BirGün executives Aydın and Gültekin are currently jailed for the inclusion of these slogans in the report about the demonstration.
While the executives are expected to serve a jail time of a few days due to a new regulation that permits the chance for convicts to get a parole on sentences less than 24 months, there are still 120 more legal cases pending against our newspaper over similar charges.
In solidarity with BirGün, Turkey’s Union of Education Workers (Eğitim Sen) released a press statement on Monday (May 29) pointing out how the current government of AKP ‘has been trying all possible ways and breaching laws just to be able to create an order that it desires.’
Meanwhile, BirGün team members Mahir Kanaat has been jailed for 134 days over accusations of ‘ties to FETÖ’ because of his tweets about reports regarding information leaked by RedHack.
With its 'Press Freedom' rank dropped to 'not free', Turkey currently has over 150 journalists jailed.
Source: https://www.birgun.net/haber-detay/birgun-yoneticileri-kirklareli-cezaevi-nde-161651.html