Two students who helped stage a protest in 2010 to demand free education were sentenced to eight years and five months in prison yesterday by a Turkish court for "membership in a terrorist organization." At the protest the students, Berna Yılmaz and Ferhat Tüzer, unfurled a banner reading: “We want free education, we will get it,” during a meeting between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Roma citizens on March 14, 2010.
Yılmaz and Tüzer have already spent one and a half year in jail under arrest. They were released in October 2011 after a previous prosecutor of the case requested the students’ acquittal, arguing their act was constitutional and fell within the limits of the freedom of expression.
However, another prosecutor specially appointed to the case demanded on March 9 that the arrested students be sentenced on charges of membership of a terrorist organization.
A third student arrested in the protest was acquitted of being a member in a terrorist organization but was still sentenced to two years and two months for his part in the protest.
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