Armenpress News Agency, Armenia
July 14, 2017 Friday


Falsely incriminated scholar Sevan Nishanyan escapes prison in Turkey



YEREVAN, JULY 14, ARMENPRESS. Istanbul-based ethnic Armenian scholar
and linguist Sevan Nishanyan, who has been serving a 17-year prison
term since 2014 in Turkey, has escaped from the correctional facility,
Turkish media reported.

Nishanyan exited the minimum security (open regime) prison in the
morning of July 14 and hasn’t returned.

A tweet later appeared on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, saying:
“The bird flew away: Same wishes to the remaining 80 million”.

Turkish historian and scholar Taner Akcam, a strong supporter of the
Armenian Genocide recognition, reacted to Nishanyan’s tweet by saying:
“Sevan Nishanyan has escaped by saying “the bird flew away”. With
expectations of a free world for all birds….”, he said.

Nishanyan was arrested and imprisoned in Turkey for carrying out
“illegal” construction in his own garden.

Even Turkish media said the arrest was an obvious framing by Turkish
authorities, because Nishanyan has publicly criticized Turkey’s
government’s mistakes.

Numerous activities and individuals have called for his release,
saying that the true reason of his arrest is the fact that he dared to
criticize the official history of Turkey by writing the “False
Republic” book.