From the Liveblog of
Thursday, June 15, 2017
Turkish opposition party begins protest march from capital
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleTurkey’s main opposition party sets off on a 425-kilometer (265 mile) march from the capital to an Istanbul prison to protest the conviction of one of its lawmakers. Thousands begin walking from Ankara, with police at the scene.
The leader of the pro-secular Republican People’s Party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, calls the “march for justice” after parliamentarian Enis Berberoglu was convicted and sentenced to 25 years for revealing state secrets.
#Turkey's main opposition leader starts his 23-day long "Justice' march from Ankara to Istanbul to protest unlawful detention of lawmaker. pic.twitter.com/UuepCU3Doa
— Abdullah Bozkurt (@abdbozkurt) June 15, 2017
Kilicdaroglu calls the verdict “palace-motivated,” a reference to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “Let the whole world hear, we are facing a dictatorial regime in Turkey, in our own land,” he says.
The case of Berberoglu, a former journalist and lawmaker, stems from a 2015 story by the Cumhuriyet newspaper suggesting Turkey’s intelligence service had smuggled weapons to Islamist rebels in Syria. His lawyer has appealed the verdict.
— AP
The Times of Israel Community.