Activist Detained With Raid For Insulting the President

Freedom and Solidarity Party’s (ÖDP) Izmir Provincial board member and United June Movement Izmir coordination member Onur Kılıç have been detained for charges related to “insulting the president”.

His lawyer Cemal Doğan told bianet that 10 police officers under Izmir Anti-Terror Department detained Kılıç by raiding an apartment he was visiting. Doğan also added that his client was given fingerprints - a practice he claimed to be unlawful. 

The aforementioned charges were claimed to take place on January 11 where Kılıç attended a protest organized by United June Movement in Izmir on secular and scientific education. Kılıç is accused of calling the president “thief and killer”. 

Kılıç told bianet that he was ordered to be detained upon a prosecutor’s routine processing of the slogan he chanted. 

“I was detained alone,” he said. 

Kılıç was also expect to show on a popular news show on CNN Türk tomorrow to explain about the school boycott for a secular and scientific education”.

After his detention, Kılıç wrote a tweet explaining the incident and added: “By the way, let me repeat: thief-killer Erdoğan!” (AS/BM)

* Click here to read the article in Turkish.