ISTANBUL (Armenpress) — Turkish authorities have seized the bank accounts of linguist, intellectual and hotelier Sevan Nisanyan, Nisanyan posted on his Facebook page.
“I had 12,000 liras for bad days on my bank account. The Republic of Turkey could do nothing else but to seize it. This is not a state, this is a group of gangsters,” he wrote.
Nisanyan, who was serving a 17-year prison term starting in 2014, escaped from the correctional facility in July. He exited the minimum security prison the morning of July 14 and fled.
A tweet later appeared on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, saying: “The bird flew away: Same wishes to the remaining 80 million.”
Nisanyan was arrested and imprisoned in Turkey for carrying out “illegal” construction. Even Turkish media said the arrest was an obvious framing by Turkish authorities, because Nisanyan 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 book, False Republic.
Nisanyan has requested asylum from Greece and was granted with a right for temporary stay of 6 months. He also informed that he will not miss the chance to visit Armenia as soon as he has the right to legally travel.
