Turkey: Istanbul CHP chief sentenced to nearly ten years imprisonment

The Istanbul leader of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) has been sentenced to almost ten years in prison. A court in the Turkish metropolis found Canan Kaftancioglu guilty of old tweets and other statements of "terror propaganda", "presidential insult" and "insulting the Turkish Republic", their party said. The prison sentence is therefore nine years, eight months and 20 days.

Since she showed no remorse and read after a previous court hearing a critical poem by the left poet Nazim Hikmet, the sentence was not suspended, said a CHP representative. However, the pugnacious opposition politician is therefore not arrested for the duration of the appeal. According to her party, an appeals court must now decide on the case within six months.

CHP accuses AKP of punishing Kaftancioglu for the election result in Istanbul

Kaftancioglu is an influential supporter of her party colleague Ekrem Imamoglu, who was elected mayor of Istanbul at the end of June. For the first time in a long while, the CHP had taken over the governing AKP party from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country's most important mayor. The CHP accused the AKP of wanting to punish Kaftancioglu for the election result.

According to experts, the number of libel suits has increased sharply since Erdogan became president. Also Germans are affected again and again. The most recent case that has become known is another lawsuit against Hozan Cane (artist name), a Cologne singer already convicted of terror charges in Turkey. The next hearing is scheduled for September 16, according to her lawyer. The cause of the lawsuit is a caricature of Erdogan, someone shared on a Facebook page with Canes name.

Also a German employee of the Friedrich Naumann donation in Istanbul is accused because of presidential defamation. Aret D. is back in court on October 8th. He used the word "upper thief" ("bascalan") in a tweet in June 2018 according to the indictment.