Istanbul: A trial opened on Friday against Canan Kaftancioglu, the Istanbul chief of Turkey’s opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), who is accused of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in years-old social media posts, among other charges.
Kaftancioglu is widely viewed as one of the architects of the recent mayoral election victory in Istanbul of Ekrem Imamoglu.
The indictment cites 35 social media posts between 2012 and 2017. The prosecution is seeking a sentence of up to 17 years in prison, the CHP said. Aside from insulting the president, she is also accused of insulting the Republic of Turkey, provoking hatred and hostility among the people and spreading propaganda for a terrorist organisation.
“Even though this trial has no judicial aspect and it was opened with entirely political motives, I will exercise my legal rights to the end, because I believe in democracy and justice,” Kaftancioglu tweeted.
Istanbul Mayor Imamoglu took office on Thursday, four days after a decisive victory in an election rerun that had been demanded by Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The CHP said that Erdogan’s AKP “wants to punish Ms Kaftancioglu due to the election result.”
The investigation against her dates back to January 2018, starting just two days after she was picked as the party’s Istanbul head, according to CHP lawmaker Sezgin Tanrikulu.
Her supporters say another tweet, in which she appeared to deny the Armenian genocide, was fake and had been created to smear her.
“This trial, as everyone knows, is a political trial,” said a lawyer for the CHP outside the court.
“We are once again before the court for a case that is unjust, outside of the law and without any foundation.”
Imamoglu’s landslide victory this week marked the first significant defeat for Erdogan since he took power in 2003. — dpa
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