Today In Crackdown

Çetin Çiftçi, a Turkish journalist who has been sentenced to 6 years, 3 months in prison on charges of membership in a terrorist organization, has tested positive in Ankara’s Sİncan prison. According to the Jailed Journos Twitter account, Çiftçi suffers from renal failure and cardiac disease. Çiftçi was a reporter for the Bugün daily,  which […]

At least 191 inmates in İstanbul’s notorious Silivri Prison, have so far tested positive for COVID-19 , according to Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, an opposition member of the Turkish parliament and a rights activist. Gergerlioğlu said in a tweet late on Sunday that eight of the infected inmates were taken to the intensive care unit of

A total of 120 prisoners across Turkey have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, according to Turkish Justice Minister Abdülhamit Gül announced on Tuesday. “They are all receiving treatment in the hospital,” Gül said. “There are no prisoners in intensive care, and their condition is generally good.” Gül said new arrivals

Netflix has removed an episode of the Designated Survivor, an American political thriller drama television series, from its streaming service in Turkey upon a demand from the country’s Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK). The show’s 7th episode in season two depicts that a fictitious Turkish president, portreyed by Troy Caylak, accuses the POTUS, portreyed

Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has said it is preparing to file a complaint with the Constitutional Court about a controversial early release bill aimed at reducing the country’s prison population amid the COVID-19 outbreak, the T24 news website reported on Tuesday. The move was announced by CHP deputy group chairman Engin Özkoç

Turkish journalist Büşra Erdal said in a letter that she continues to “languish” in a prison despite completion of her prison term, the Gülen-friendly website TR724 reported. “As of March 2020, I completed a total of 3 years, 8 months in prison. This means I qualify for a release on probation,” Erdal said. Erdal used

Turkey’s parliament passed a bill on Tuesday that will allow the release of tens of thousands of prisoners as part of the country’s ongoing struggle against the COVID-19 epidemic. Political prisoners who are convicted or being held in pre-trial detention over “terror or/and coup” links are exempted. In other words, thousands of purge-victims are exempted.

A Turkish court has ruled to imprison an amateur comedian on charges of insulting Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, and the famous mystic Rumi in his shows, according to Turkish media reports. A video posted on social media last week showed comedian Emre Günsal making jokes about the drinking habits of Atatürk

Murat Sadıç, a nuclear cardiology professor who reportedly spent over a year in a Turkish prison in 2017 over alleged coup charges, has been invited to the United States due to his “promising coronavirus vaccine research” in Germany. According to the Bold Medya news portal, Sadıç was fired from his job with a government decree

Inmates at a prison in the Kurdish-majority city of Batman staged a riot over fears of contamination amid a coronavirus outbreak that has seen more than 25,000 infections and over 500 deaths in the country. The unrest took place in Batman’s Type-M closed prison early on Saturday, according to journalist Ahmet Kanbal, who posted video