Fatih Altayli, a journalist from Turkey, was sentenced for comments about President Erdogan. He denies the charges, plans to appeal, and his YouTube show has been suspended.
A Turkish court on Wednesday sentenced well-known journalist and political commentator Fatih Altayli to four years and two months in prison for “threatening” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The journalist plans to appeal against the verdict. His defense informed about it, AFP agency writes.
Altayli was arrested in June for commenting on the YouTube platform about a poll showing that 70 percent of Turks do not support Erdogan’s life as president.
“Look at the history of this country,” he commented on the survey results, according to the AP agency. “This nation strangled their sultan when they didn’t like him or didn’t want him. There are enough Ottoman sultans who were murdered, strangled, or whose death looked like suicide,” he said.
The convicted journalist described the reasons for his conviction as absurd. “Why should the president be afraid of me? I am not a member of any organization. I have never resorted to violence,” he said.
Altayli’s show was available on YouTube last month. She was suspended after the trial began. Despite being in custody, his team continued to upload comments sent from behind the bars on his channel.
According to the Syndicate of Turkish Journalists, there are 11 journalists and other media workers in Turkish prisons. The government denies that they are there for their work and points out that they broke the law.
