Turkish authorities seize Sevan Nishanyan's bank assets

YEREVAN, AUGUST 8, ARMENPRESS. Turkish authorities have seized the bank assets of Istanbul-Armenian linguist Sevan Nishanyan, “Armenpress” reports Nishanyan posted on his Facebook page.

“I had 12 thousand 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.

Istanbul-based ethnic Armenian scholar and linguist Sevan Nishanyan, who has been serving a 17-year prison term since 2014 in Turkey, escaped from the correctional facility in July.

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”.

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.

Nishanyan 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.