Posted on November 13, 2019 at 7:57 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
The celebration over a Turkish writer’s release from jail appears to have been premature.
Journalist and novelist Ahmet Altan was arrested again after the chief public prosecutor appealed the decision to release him, according to the Guardian, citing Turkey’s state news agency.
Altan was first arrested in 2016 for allegedly supporting a coup; he and the Muslim preacher accused of orchestrating the coup deny the charges.
Advocacy organizations pushed back against the news of Altan’s rearrest Tuesday, with PEN America describing it as “a disgrace and a horror” and Amnesty International calling it “impossible to see this decision as anything other than further punishment for his determination not to be silenced.”
Altan's prison memoir, I Will Never See the World Again, was longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize earlier this year, drawing more international attention to his plight.
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Categories: Today in Books