Writer İhsan Eliaçık handed down prison sentence

An Istanbul court on April 17 handed down theologian and writer İhsan Eliaçık six years and three months in prison for “conducting propaganda for an armed terrorist organization.”
 
Eliaçık gave his final statement during the hearing at the 26th High Criminal Court of Istanbul. The court then announced its verdict, convicting Eliaçık of “conducting propaganda for an armed terrorist organization” during a public speech he made at a conference, which was also posted online on the theologian’s website.
 
The court did not reduce the sentence while it ruled to impose judicial control measures on Eliaçık. These measures include a ban on leaving Istanbul’s city limits in addition to the more commonly implemented ban on international travel. Eliaçık will also have to report in person to his local police station twice a week.
 
The indictment against Eliaçık accused the writer of conducting propaganda for PKK/KCK.

In his final opinion submitted during the previous hearing of the trial on March 28 the prosecutor requested up to seven years and six months imprisonment for Eliaçık, alleging that he had attempted to create a negative public image of the operations conducted by the state’s security forces. Some of the articles penned by Eliaçık were also included in the prosecutor’s final opinion.