PodcastLetter not penned by jailed journalist Ahmet Altan, daughter declares
A letter that was alleged to have been written by jailed journalist Ahmet Altan stirred controversy. Altan's daughter Sanem Altan protested the rumors and noted that the amount of writing errors in the letter were evidence that her father wasn't the author.
Duvar English
Citing errors and poor writing quality, the daughter of long-jailed journalist Ahmet Altan, Sanem Altan, has come out against a letter circulating on social media that is alleged to have been written by her father.
Altan's daughter Sanem Altan refuted rumors that her father penned the letter, pointing out that the quality of the writing alone was proof that the letter was not written by her father.
"You won't be able to liken him to yourselves no matter what you do! That letter that Ahmet Altan supposedly wrote is a treachery against writing itself. What kind of sentences are those?" Altan said.
The letter was titled "The Kurds," and mentioned the co-heads of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, referencing them as the only other people that Erdoğan can't "buy," alongside Altan himself.
"I don't have the power to match [President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan, but he can't buy my thoughts and ideas," reads the letter.
The letter also included sensationalist claims: "People will remember me like they remember Shakespeare. I'm a nationalist when necessary. My nationalistic success was gained through my artistic work."
Altan was released Nov. 4, 2019 after 1,138 days in prison for “being a member of an armed terrorist organization” and for aiding the Gülen organization, the group widely believed to have orchestrated the failed 2016 coup attempt. Nine days after his release from prison, Altan was re-jailed on Nov. 13, 2019.