Turkey protests: Thousands march after court convicts opposition MP
Thousands of Turkish demonstrators have marched through Ankara to protest against the jailing of an opposition lawmaker. Enis Berberoglu was this week sentenced to 25 years in prison on spying charges.
Supporters of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) packed into a park in central Ankara on Thursday, waving Turkish flags and banners emblazoned with the word “Justice.”
CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu (pictured above, center) called the protest on Wednesday after a court found one of the party’s deputies, Enis Berberoglu, guilty of leaking a video that purportedly showed Turkey smuggling weapons to Syrian rebels. Berberoglu was given a 25-year prison sentence.
Kilicdaroglu described the decision as lawless and politically motivated. Holding a sign reading “Adalet,” meaning justice in Turkish, he vowed to march the 400 kilometers (250 miles) from Ankara to the Istanbul prison where Berberoglu is being held.
Thousands of protesters joined CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu as he began his long walk to Istanbul
“If there is a price to pay then I will be the first to pay it,” he said. “I am going to walk and I am going to walk all the way to Istanbul. And we will continue this march until there is justice in Turkey.”
Party officials said they expect the walk could take the 68-year-old politician at least 20 days. A number of CHP members tweeted images from the protest.
Ongoing post-coup crackdown
During Berberoglu’s trial, prosecutors argued the lawmaker had passed on information to the Cumhuriyet newspaper that suggested Turkish intelligence services were shipping weapons and ammunition across the Syrian border to Islamist rebels. The paper published the story in 2015.
Berberoglu is the first lawmaker from the main secular opposition CHP to be jailed since the government crackdown that followed last year’s failed coup. Tens of thousands of people have been arrested or fired from their jobs in the wake of the July 15 putsch attempt. Among the detained are 11 lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) – the third-largest party in parliament.
Turkey hands jail sentence to UN judge Adif Sedaf Akay
A Turkish court has sentenced top UN judge Adif Sedaf Akay to more than seven years in jail over alleged ties to a group blamed for a failed coup attempt. The UN war crimes court in The Hague says the move is illegal.
An Ankara court hearing the case on Thursday sentenced Akay, who is attached to the UN’s Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT), to seven years and six months in prison.
The judge was charged with “membership in an armed terror group” over his alleged links to the organization of Fethullah Gulen, a US-based preacher that Turkey has blamed for the attempted overthrow of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
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The court found Akay guilty of using Bylock, a communications service that Ankara claims was especially created for Gulen supporters.
Akay has strongly denied the allegations, which have caused uproar in the international community.
After the sentence was passed, Akay – who was arrested at his family home last September – was released under judicial supervision pending confirmation of the verdict by Turkey’s top appeals court, the Yargitay. The court placed an international travel ban on Akay, meaning he will not be able to resume his work at MICT.
Work on Rwanda genocide
Akay had been working with the UN international court trying suspects over the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. His detention has paralyzed proceedings at an appeal hearing of former Rwandan minister Augustin Ngirabatware.
In a statement from MICT, president Judge Theodor Meron said he “deeply regrets this action of the Turkish authorities, in further breach of Judge Akay’s protected status under the international legal framework.”
The judge’s arrest in September last year, his detention since then, and a legal case against him “are inconsistent with the assertion of his diplomatic immunity by the United Nations,” the MICT said. In March, The Hague referred Turkey to the UN Security Council in relation to the affair.