Students sentenced to eight years for banner in Turkey

Two students who staged a protest in 2010 to demand free education were sentenced to eight years and five months in prison yesterday by a Turkish court for "membership in a terrorist organization," Hurriyet Dily News reports

The students, Berna Yılmaz and Ferhat Tüzer, unfurled a banner reading: “We want free education, we will get it,” during a meeting between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Roma citizens on March 14, 2010.

Yılmaz and Tüzer have already spent one and a half year in jail under arrest. They were released in October 2011 after the previous prosecutor of the case, Kasım İlimoğlu, requested the students’ acquittal, arguing their act was constitutional and fell within the limits of the freedom of expression.