ISTANBUL (AP) – Dozens of football fans who took part in last year’s mass anti-government protests went on trial on Tuesday accused of an attempted coup, in a case seen as the latest example of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s crackdown on dissent.
Thirty-five fans, including members of Carsi – a die-hard Besiktas fan group – could face life in prison if convicted of charges of trying to “remove the government” through the use of “violence and force.”
Erdogan has portrayed the mass protests denouncing his rule in June 2013 as a conspiracy to bring down the government.
The trial opened as Turkey has come under heavy international criticism for the detentions this week of journalists, TV producers and scriptwriters affiliated with a movement led by a U.S.-based Muslim cleric which has become Erdogan’s strongest critic.
In the opening hearing, court officials read from the prosecutors’ indictment which accuses the football fans of trying to seize hold of Erdogan’s offices in Ankara and Istanbul and of projecting an image of a weak government and an “Arab Spring”-like government change.