Istanbul: Turkey’s main opposition party started a 400-kilometre march on Thursday from the capital to an Istanbul prison to protest the imprisonment of one of its lawmakers.
The leader of the pro-secular Republican People’s Party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, called the “march for justice” on Wednesday after parliamentarian Enis Berberoglu was convicted to 25 years in prison for revealing state secrets.
Thousands set off on the march from Ankara, led by Kilicdaroglu carrying a banner reading “Justice,” and police were at the scene.
Kilicdaroglu said he wants justice, democracy and freedom in Turkey. “Let the whole world hear, we are facing a dictatorial regime in Turkey, in our own land,” he said.
On Wednesday, an Istanbul court found Berberoglu, a former journalist and lawmaker, guilty on espionage charges. His case stems from a 2015 story by the Cumhuriyet newspaper suggesting Turkey’s intelligence service had smuggled weapons to Islamist rebels in Syria.
Berberoglu was accused of giving journalists footage that showed local authorities searching Syria-bound trucks allegedly carrying mortar rounds and getting into a standoff with Turkish intelligence officials. Turkish leaders denied supporting Islamist rebels and said the trucks contained aid to Turkmens in Syria.
Can Dundar, Cumhuriyet’s then editor-in-chief who is now abroad, and the paper’s Ankara representative, Erdem Gul, are also on trial on similar charges. Separately, the three are being tried for “aiding a terror organisation without being members,” referring to the network of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Turkey claims orchestrated last summer’s bloody coup. The prosecutor believes Gulen’s network to be the source of the leaked images.
After the verdict, Kilicdaroglu tweeted, “In this country, the punishment for covering the news of a truck filled with weapons heading to terror groups is 25 years in prison but illegal arm shipments are allowed!”
Berberoglu is the first legislator from the Republican People’s Party to be imprisoned since a constitutional amendment stripped parliamentary immunities last year. A dozen pro-Kurdish lawmakers are already in prison for allegedly supporting terror and more than 50,000 people have been arrested for purported links to Gulen.
Turkish media said the march would take two weeks, covering approximately 15 to 20 kilometres each day. Kilicdaroglu is escorted by his security detail.
