Prison Term for Journalist İnce for Acrostic Defense

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BirGün daily Editorial Consultant and columnist Barış İnce has been sentenced to 21 months of prison on charge of defaming president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his acrostic plea in the suit brought over insulting Erdoğan and his son bilal Erdoğan.

BirGün reported that the penalty hasn’t been suspended. It can be appealed.

İnce posted the following tweet upon the ruling:

21 ay hapis! Biz yine çıkacağız, güleceğiz, konuşacağız. Ama ileride çocuklarımız onların isimlerini hep hırsız olarak faşist olarak bilecek

— Barış İnce (@barisince82) 8 Mart 2016

21 months of prison! We will again go out, laugh, speak. But our children in future will know their names always as thief and fascist.

What had happened?

The charges were made after İnce faced an investigation as editor-in-chief due to his newspaper’s coverage on TÜRGEV Foundation - an entity with president's son Bilal Erdoğan in the administration.  

Related to the case, BirGün newspaper journalists Abdülhamit Çay and Cengiz Aktürk stood trial for defamation due to an article entitled “They have built double road to their pockets” on March 3. 

“There is political criticism here. Acrostics was one of the most flamboyant ways to do that,” İnce told bianet. 

“Charging somebody for acrostics,” he added, “is fascism”. 

The case indictment cited that Ince’s defense statement was published on BirGün newspaper under the title “Such is my defense”. The prosecutor claimed that the first letters of each paragraphs in the article started in the fashion that it would form the message “Thief Tayyip”. (Hırsız Tayyip in Turkish) (EA/TK)