JINHA

İSTANBUL - Ceyda Karan, who is a columnist for Cumhuriyet Newspaper, has been sentenced two years in jail on Thursday for publishing the cover of the special issue of the magazine Charlie Hebdo. Ceyda said, "We don't accept this crime an inch. We don't attack the people with weapons, we don't graft or insult to the people, we just did our job and we'll continue to do our job."

Following the deadly attack that left 12 people dead at Charlie Hebdoheadquarters in Paris in January 2015, Ceyda Karan and Hikmet Çetinkaya, columnists for Cumhuriyet Newspaper, published the cover of the special issue of the magazine Charlie Hebdo for solidarity. The two columnists were convicted of "openly encouraging hate end enmity among people via the press," and they have been sentenced two years in jail. Ceyda evaluated the result of the trial as, "This is the point of the legal system in Turkey."

"There was nothing about the insulting or aggression in the cartoon. They have sentenced two years in jail for a cartoon that emphasizes compassion. Unfortunately, Liberal secularism doesn't exist in these lands. We don't have any problem with religion. However, the exploitation of religion has become at the highest level in the period of this government. This penalty of imprisonment shows once again that there is no freedom of expression in our country.

"We'll seek our rights. We'll litigate to the European Court of Human Rights. We did our job and we'll continue to do our job."

(ro/ck/dk/gd)