Visually impaired journalist Cüneyt Arat was released after Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals accepted a late appeal request in a case in which he had received a prison sentence of eight years, 10 months and 15 days over alleged links to the Gülen movement.
Arat announced his release on social media, saying the appeal had been delayed because the lawyer assigned to him through the bar association failed to attend hearings in the trial court and did not use his right to object or appeal.
The Gaziantep Regional Court of Appeals had upheld Arat’s sentence, leaving the case to Turkey’s top appeals court.
Arat said the 16th Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals accepted his delayed appeal request and ordered his release.
“My release was secured at around 11 last night,” Arat wrote.
The case was part of the post-2016 crackdown in which journalists, civil servants, teachers, judges, soldiers and others were prosecuted over alleged links to the Gülen movement, a transnational civic initiative inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
Ankara designates the Gülen movement as a terrorist organization and blames it for Turkey’s 2016 coup attempt. The movement denies involvement in the coup or any terrorist activity.
Arat, who is severely visually impaired, also criticized the way he was treated after his release. He said a gendarmerie patrol officer left him at Tarsus State Hospital instead of taking him to the bus terminal and did not help him get into a taxi.
“What if something had happened to me while I was trying to find a taxi?” he asked, criticizing the officer for what he described as irresponsible conduct.
Arat said his imprisonment had cost him many followers on Twitter but added that he would continue writing what he believed to be true.
“Even if my number of followers falls to zero, I will always write what I know to be true,” he said.
