Journalist Hakan Aygün Arrested for Mocking President's Fundraising Campaign

Photo: AA

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Journalist Hakan Aygün was arrested and remanded in custody on Saturday (April 4) over his tweets on a fundraising campaign launched by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Erdoğan had asked citizens to put money into a bank account, giving an international bank account number (IBAN).

In a tweet he posted on March 31, Aygün made a wordplay on IBAN and "iman," which means "belief" in Turkish and mostly used in a religious manner. He wrote about an imaginary "IBAN section" of Quran, saying those who "IBAN" and those who "don't IBAN" would be "separated in the afterlife."

In another tweet on April 2, he said he did not originally write the message but tweeted it after it was sent to him.

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Following a criminal complaint to İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, he was detained on Saturday in the western Muğla province. A penal court of peace remanded him in custody on the same day for "provoking people into enmity and hatred" and "insult."

Mustafa Doğan, an attorney who filed the complaint against Aygün, had claimed that the tweets Aygün posted after Erdoğan's campaign exceeded the limits of criticism and was humiliating, unrealistic and encouraging criminal activities. (EKN/VK)