Ahmet Altan will not be sleeping behind bars tonight. The Turkish authorities released, Wednesday, April 14, the famous journalist and writer Ahmet Altan, whose imprisonment in connection with a coup attempt in 2016 was often held up as a symbol of attacks on freedom of expression in Turkey. Ahmet Altan was released after the Court of Cassation overturned his sentence of 10.5 years in prison for “assisting a terrorist organization”, handed down in 2019, and ordered his release.
This decision comes a day after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned Turkey for the detention for more than four years of this 71-year-old intellectual who is respected at home and abroad. “He was released an hour ago and is on his way home,” his lawyer Figen Calikusu told Agence France-Presse in the evening.
“Grotesque” accusations
Arrested in September 2016, Ahmet Altan was sentenced to life imprisonment in February 2018 for “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order”. Rejected after a first cancellation of his trial by the court of cassation, he was sentenced in November 2019 to 10 and a half years in prison. Released at the end of his second trial, he was again arrested and imprisoned in Silivri prison, located near Istanbul and of sinister reputation, after a week. Ahmet Altan, who founded the opposition newspaper Taraf, made a name for himself outside Turkey for his account of his life in prison. His book I will never see the world again was published in France by Actes Sud editions.
The authorities accuse the intellectual of being linked to the preacher Fethullah Gülen, the bête noire of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who designates him as the sponsor of an attempted coup on July 15, 2016. Ahmet Altan has always formally denied his involvement in the coup attempt, rejecting “grotesque” accusations. He was notably accused of having sent “subliminal messages” during a broadcast broadcast live on a pro-Gülen channel on the eve of the failed putsch, an element which then disappeared from the indictment.
The conviction of another journalist also quashed
In a judgment published Tuesday, the magistrates of the ECHR considered that “nothing shows that the actions of the applicant were part of a plan intended to overthrow the Turkish government”. They also noted the violation of provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights relating to freedom of expression, to the “right to liberty and security” and to the “to have a decision made promptly by a court on the legality of detention ”.
The long detention of Ahmet Altan has become, for many freedom of expression and press organizations, a symbol of the erosion of the rule of law in Turkey, in particular since the abortive putsch of 2016 Several tens of thousands of people have been arrested, more than 140,000 sacked or suspended and dozens of media shut down as part of the sweeping purges launched in 2016.
“Very happy to learn that the Court of Cassation of Turkey ordered the release of the writer Ahmet Altan”, reacted on Twitter the rapporteur of the European Parliament on Turkey, Nacho Sanchez Amor, calling for the “abandonment of prosecutions ”which target the intellectual. Ahmet Altan’s brother Mehmet, a writer and scholar, was also accused of being involved in the attempted coup and was jailed for nearly two years before being acquitted. On Wednesday, the court of cassation also overturned the conviction of another journalist and writer, Nazli Ilicak, who had been arrested at the same time as the Altan brothers and sentenced in 2019 with Ahmet. She was released in November 2019.
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