Musician Yurdatapan given 15 months in daily Özgür Gündem solidarity campaign case

ISTANBUL

An Istanbul court on Jan. 13 sentenced musician Şanar Yurdatapan to one year and three months in prison in a case for participating in the “Editor-in-Chief on Duty” solidarity campaign with the now closed daily Özgür Gündem, marking the first conviction in the case.

During the third hearing of the case, the Istanbul 22nd Court of Serious Crimes sentenced Yurdatapan to one year and three months on charges of “engaging in terror organization propaganda.” The sentence was suspended.

The court also sentenced the musician to 10 months in prison on charges of “publishing statements of the terror organization” before ultimately converting it to a 6,000-Turkish Lira pecuniary punishment.

The prosecutor in the case had sought up to 10.5 years in jail for Yudatapan.

Yurdatapan was among those who had been tried over their reports during their one day of service as editor-in-chief at the daily.

An Istanbul court had previously ordered the arrest of three campaigners, Şebnem Korur Fincancı, Erol Önderoğlu and Ali Nesin, on the same charges after they served as guest editors during the campaign but they were later released.

Recently, novelist Aslı Erdoğan and linguist Necmiye Alpay were released on Dec. 29 following their four-month prison term on charges of “making terrorist propaganda” for daily Özgür Gündem.

The daily was shut down on Aug. 16, 2016, for allegedly conducting propaganda on behalf of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and acting as the organization’s media organ.