An Ankara Court has accepted an indictment against RedHack, a Turkish hacker group, seeking prison sentences of 8.5 to 24 years for its members as “members of a terrorist group.”
RedHack has denied the allegations, saying 10 people currently being tried have no ties with the group and that the allegations of terrorism are simply part of the government’s policy against all of its opponents in the country.
“We just demand freedom and unlimited information. That’s why they call us terrorists. Those 10 people have no ties with us; they are only innocent people who shared the news [on online platforms] about us,” a RedHack member told the Hürriyet Daily News yesterday via instant messaging over Twitter.
The indictment likened Redhack’s activities to those of such outlawed leftist organizations as the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) or the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
“It has been determined that [RedHack] has lent support to Marxist, Leninist, Maoist, leftist and separatist terrorist organizations. Hence, even though they are not members of those terrorist organizations, RedHack Kızılyıldızlar [RedStars] members can be considered to have perpetrated crimes in the name of those organizations,” the indictment read.
