Media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders has called Altayli’s imprisonment a ‘blatant injustice’ [Getty/file photo]
An Istanbul court has ordered the release of a well-known journalist after he was jailed for “threatening” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the rights group MLSA said Monday.
Fatih Altayli was arrested in June after discussing a poll showing 70 percent of the public opposed longtime leader Erdogan becoming president for life.
He was sentenced to four years and two months in November for his comments “threatening” the Turkish leader.
The media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called for Altayli’s acquittal in comments to AFP.
RSF’s representative in Turkey, Erol Onderoglu, said Altayli’s arrest and detention were a “blatant injustice”, adding that the journalist has “become one of the symbols of the politicisation of justice and the intimidation targeting the right to information”.
In the video – published on Altayli’s YouTube channel, which has 1.7 million subscribers – the journalist said the figure was “not particularly surprising”, in response to a question about the poll.
Apart from fans of Erdogan’s AKP party and some voters for its small nationalist ally, the MHP, “no one supports such an idea”, he said, in remarks quoted by Turkish media.
“Look at the distant past: This is a nation that has strangled its sultans when it didn’t like them or want them… There are many Ottoman sultans who were strangled, assassinated or allegedly committed suicide,” he said.
The 63-year-old journalist has spent six months behind bars in Silivri prison, west of Istanbul.