THREAD 👇🏽

This arrest demonstrates the extent of the authoritarian regime's and its mouthpieces' audacity in dealing with any kind of dissident voice. Regime's motto is simply the age-old 'You're either with us or against us'.

bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…

Anyone can become a target and even put in jail overnight in this farcical form of authoritarianism. This has been the case for years and many artists,activists,academics, journalists, politicians & human rights defenders have faced dire circumstances from exile to imprisonment.

Their modus operandi is not unique, it is the text book authoritarian method.👇🏽

The mouthpieces of the government target the person who doesn't adhere to the world view of the regime. Prosecutors act quickly. Courts put the cherry on the cake. Government says it has nothing to do with them since the judiciary is 'independent'.

If you have a second look at the BBC's article you will see this at the end:

▶️Pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak ran the headline: 'The clown crossed the line.'◀️

bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…

The absurd claims the said newspaper had made 9 years ago about me, PINAR ÖĞÜN and the play I directed constitute the main premise of the indictment which resulted in the sentencing of 7 activists.

On 25/04/2022, 8 activists were convicted and 7 were sent to prison for “attempting to overthrow the government by force” in connection with the Gezi Park protests.

The court sentenced #OsmanKavala , who had already been in jail for 4.5 years, to life imprisonment without parole, the most severe sentence that exists in the Turkish penal code.

The court also handed out 18-year sentences to mücella yapıcı Çiğdem Mater'e Özgürlük, Hakan Altinay, mine ozerden, can atalay, #YigitAliEkmekci and Tayfun Kahraman ordering their immediate arrest. Ekmekçi wasn’t present at the time of the verdict, so he wasn’t sent to prison.

I and PINAR ÖĞÜN are two of the co-defendants of the same case. The said newspaper's headline with the absurd claims about me and the play was on 10/06/2013. The first arrests concerning those claims were made on 17/10/2017.

The 657 page indictment which is almost fully based on the absurd claims made by the likes of the said newspaper was released on 19/02/2019. You can find out more about the Gezi Trial and #TheGezi7 here 👇🏽 amnesty.org/en/latest/camp…