Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Eren Erdem, who was not included on his party’s nomination list for the June 24 general election, was not allowed to leave Turkey on Monday as he had been indicted by an Istanbul court, the T24 news website reported.
“A travel ban was imposed on me. We learned it when starting a trip that had been planned in advance,” Erdem tweeted.
Reacting to stories in the pro-government media and posted by social media trolls, Erdem said: “This is not first time a travel ban has been imposed on me. It was done before, too. They had said then “he’ll flee.” We will defeat fascism in this country. I’m not going anywhere,” added Erdem.
Recalling that he has a house in Germany and that he travels to that country every 15 to 20 days, Erdem also criticized his party: “This decision [of a travel ban] was taken when my name was not put on the list [of CHP deputy nominees for the June 24 elections]. My party knew this would happen.”
The travel ban was issued by the Istanbul 35th High Criminal Court after accepting an indictment that demands 22 years in prison for Erdem for his articles in the Karşı daily about the Dec. 17-25, 2013 corruption investigations, which implicated four ministers and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s family. Erdem served as editor-in-chief of Karşı, which was established on Feb. 9, 2014 and closed due to financial problems after only 66 days of operation.
The indictment claims that Erdem published documents in cooperation with the Gülen movement.