Today In Crackdown

Barış Pehlivan, editor-in-chief of the Oda TV news portal, has been given 11 months 20 days prison sentence for “insulting” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. According to the Diken news portal, Pehlivan found guilty for publishing the sarcastic comments made by the British comedian John William Oliver’s comments during the HBO political talk-show. Insulting the president […]

At least 22,000 inmates are forced to sleep on the floor as the prison population has exceeded 229,000 for the first time in Turkey’s history, the Haberturk news website reported on Tuesday. According to the report, based on figures provided by the Justice Ministry, 229,790 people are in prisons with a total capacity of 207,339.

The newly released book on human rights violations in Turkey in the aftermath of a failed coup last year, written by Naciye Nur Ener, the jailed editor of the Yeni Asya daily, has been banned in Turkish prisons, Yeni Asya reported on Sunday. According to the paper, prison guards seized a copy of the book, titled

Atilla Taş, a former singer and a columnist for the now-closed Meydan daily, Murat Aksoy, former columnist of now-closed Bugün daily, and Davut Aydın, a former teacher, were released by an İstanbul court on Tuesday after 416 in pretrial detention over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, which is accused by the Turkish government

The regime of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will spend TL 5.5 billion for the construction of 39 new prisons in various provinces of Turkey, Cigdem Toker wrote in her Tuesday column for the Cumhuriyet daily. According to Toker prison construction constitutes a new field of profit-making usurped by the government, which has made the process of construction

A Turkish court, on Tuesday, released Ömer Çelik , from the pro-Kurdish news agency DIHA, pending trial while ruling to keep the other two journalists in the same trial, Tunca Öğreten and Mahir Kanaat in detention on remand. The three are among six journalists who were detained in December due to their reports on the leaks

At least 7 people were detained for having raised the amount of the money held at their Bank Asya accounts after late 2013, state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Saturday. Police in Iğdır, Muş, İstanbul, Rize, Erzurum and Düzce provinces detained 7 suspects over gradual deposit increase in their Bank Asya accounts after December 2013.

The Gaziantep Regional Court of Justice has approved a 55 month, 10 day prison sentence for Ferhat Encü, one of 10 jailed deputies from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Habertürk reported on Thursday. The Şırnak 2nd High Criminal Court on June 9 had handed down a prison sentence of 55 months, 10 days on

The German province of North Rhine-Westphalia’s (NRW) Interior Minister Herbert Reul said Turkish intelligence service (MIT) have been collecting information about the opponents of the government of Turkey in the region. German media said on Thursday that Reul underlined in a recent parliamentary report that MIT collects systematic information about alleged government opponents on behalf of

Ankara police detained 5 journalists following house raids on Friday. Mezopotamya news agency reporters Selman Güzelyüz and Diren Yurtsever, and Jinnews editor Sibel Yükler were rounded up along with Duygu Erol and Habibe Eren, reporters for the latter media outlet. Media reported that the detentions were made “upon a complaint,” while Mezopotamya said “It is