A letter from 38 Nobel Laureates to Erdoğan 
38 Nobel Laureates wrote an open letter to the Turkish president to call for the release of writers and intellectuals imprisoned after the 2016 attempted coup. Explicit mention is made of journalists Nazlı Ilıcak and brothers Ahmet and Mehmet Altan
38 Nobel Laureates, including Kazuo Ishiguro, Hartmut Michel, and Herta Müller, wrote an open letter to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, published on The Guardian, calling for the release of the writers and journalists detained in Turkey. The Nobel laureates specifically mention the case of journalists Nazlı Ilıcak and brothers Mehmet and Ahmet Altan, sentenced to aggravated life sentences on February 16th.
The journalists are accused of participating in the movement led by Fethullah Gülen, who according to the Turkish government is the mastermind of the attempted coup of July 15th, 2016.
The verdict has been harshly criticised by a number of media freedom organisations as well as OSCE and United Nations representatives. The Nobel-prize winners related these criticisms to the “unlawful detention and wrongful conviction of writers and thinkers”, guilty of exercising their right to freedom of speech and expression. The letter also suggests that, until the rule of law is restored and the imprisoned writers released, Turkey will not be able to claim to be part of the free world.
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