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President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has hosted university students at the sahur program organized in Beştepe, Ankara.
Stating that “Maybe we’ll also come to a point where we’ll send astronaut or something”, Erdoğan responded to a question who asked about freedom of the press, “You are free enough to ask such a question to the President at his own place”.
“We’ve sent our space vehicles; some countries have started to be a member of us”
In response to a question of a student from the Department of Astronomy and Space Sciences about whether any space research will be conducted, Erdoğan said:
“Maybe we will come to a point where we’ll send astronaut or something to space. Turkey has started to work on it now.
“(…) Thank god we’ve sent our own space vehicles and some countries have started to be a member of us.
“In a short time, Turkey will have come to a serious stage in terms of space sciences if god permits”.
“Prove that journalists are not free”
Upon a student, who studies at the department of journalism, saying that he or she wishes the press to be free, Erdoğan said:
“You are free enough to ask such a question to the President at his own place.
“A journalist’s space of freedom is as much as another person’s space of freedom.
“If a journalist is arrested within law for disgracing my family with all sorts of insult, will you call that ‘freedom of journalist’?
“Who tells you that journalists are not free, prove it to me.
“If he or she gets into my space of freedom, insults the President, insults the Prime Minister, that cannot be freedom. I’m sorry but Turkey is a state of law”. (EKN/TK)
