Hüseyin Aykol is the reader representative in the daily Yeni Yaşam newspaper. The paper is under attack from the government because it is one of the few opposition voices that is able to continue publishing even under heavy limitations
Hüseyin Aykol is the reader representative in the daily Yeni Yaşam newspaper. The paper is under attack from the government because it is one of the few opposition voices that is able to continue publishing even under heavy limitations.
Yesterday Aykol was due to fly to Brussels. At the airport, the police told him they were confiscating his passport because back on October 3rd, 2019 the Department of Population had decided to revoke his passport. He was not allowed to fly out of Turkey.
Aykol was never notified of such a decision and he had no idea he was on a no-fly list. He decided to go back to Ankara, the nation’s capital, and inquire the reason.
The journalist was imprisoned for working for the Özgür Gündem, a pro-Kurdish newspaper. The paper was closed down many times for reporting on the conditions in Kurdistan in Turkey but after legal battles it reopened. Understanding that they could not close the paper through legal means, finally, the Turkish president Erdoğan shut it down with a presidential decree.
After spending 107 days behind bars for journalism, Aykol was released October 25th, 2019. He faces 63 charges and trials for his journalistic work and one of his cases where he faces 3 years and 9 months prison sentence is in the appeals court.
Sendika.Org News (M.B.)
