Turkish Scientist Gets 15-Month Sentence for Publishing Environmental Study

From Science:

A Turkish food engineer and human rights activist was sentenced yesterday to 15 months in jail after publishing the results of a study he and other scientists had done that linked toxic pollution to a high incidence of cancer in western Turkey.

Bülent Şık, former deputy director of the Food Safety and Agricultural Research Center at Akdeniz University, was convicted of disclosing classified information after he published the results as a four-part series in a Turkish newspaper in April 2018. “Bülent Şık fulfilled his duty as a citizen and a scientist and he used his right to freedom of expression,” his lawyer, Can Atalay, said in his closing statement before the sentence was handed down by a court in Istanbul.

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See Also: Turkey Charges Against Whistleblower Who Exposed Public Health Dangers Must Be Dropped (September 25, 2018 via Amnesty International)

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