Turkish president vows ‘treasonous’ academics will pay the price
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has stepped up his harsh rhetoric against academics who called for an end to military operations in Turkey’s southeast, warning that they would pay the price for “falling into a pit of treachery.”
Speaking at his regular meeting with neighborhood and village heads (muhtars) at his presidential palace on Jan. 20, Erdoğan said the signatories had given their “consent” to the killing of public servants by the PKK.
“I’m saying frankly: This mindset which gives a self-styled fatwa to the terror organization’s attacks on public servants, which simply says ‘it would be better if it didn’t do so’ in response to the killing of civilians, disgusts me,” Erdoğan said.
Woman sentenced to 11 months in jail for ‘insulting Erdoğan’
İZMİR – Doğan News Agency
A Turkish woman was sentenced to 11 months in prison on Jan. 20 for “insulting” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by shouting and directing a hand gesture toward him in the Aegean province of İzmir in 2014.
An Izmir court sentenced economist Filiz Akıncı to 11 months and 20 days in jail for the offence, made while Erdoğan was departing from a rally in Gündoğdu Square on March 16, 2014, when he was still prime minister and leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Erdogan,
Erdogan vows No more talks with PKK,
Ankara will no longer engage in contact with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and will instead “liquidate” all PKK militants through ongoing security operations, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has vowed.
“We know that the only goal of the separatist terror organization is to fulfil the duty it has been tasked with by its master and completing the contract it has been given,” Erdoğan said on Jan. 20.
“So in the coming period, neither the separatist terror organization, nor the party under its control, nor other structures will ever be accepted as counterpart. That affair is over,” he added, addressing a large group of neighborhood and village heads (muhtars) at a regular meeting at his presidential palace in Ankara.
3 prominent journalists targeted in Erdoğan insult cases
Three prominent journalists — Oktay Ekşi, Ahmet Altan and Koray Çalışkan – are facing long prison sentences for insulting then-Prime Prime Minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Former Hürriyet daily columnist Ekşi testified to the court on Tuesday in a trial launched against him for allegedly insulting then-Prime Minister Erdoğan and state ministers in a column published in 2010.
Ekşi testified to the Bakırköy 2nd Criminal Court of First Instance in İstanbul, saying he never intended to insult with his words, “This mindset can even sell their mothers,” in his column about hydroelectric power plants. Ekşi said he used those words in order to increase the impact of his column, but not to insult anyone.