(MENAFN) Warning the leader that his country's reputation is at stake due to its unjust persecution and detention of journalists and writers, 38 Nobel prize winners including JM Coetzee, Kazuo Ishiguro and Mario Vargas Llosa have penned an open letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The letter revolved around the case of novelist and columnist Ahmet Altan, who was sentenced to life imprisonment earlier this month over his alleged links to the failed 2016 coup in Turkey.
"We wish to draw your attention to the damage being done to the Republic of Turkey, to its reputation and the dignity and wellbeing of its citizens, through what leading authorities on freedom of expression deem to be the unlawful detention and wrongful conviction of writers and thinkers," the letter read, published in The Guardian on Wednesday.
It's worth saying that according to the P24 press freedom group, there are 156 jailed journalists in Turkey, most of whom were detained in the mass crackdown after the failed coup aimed at ousting Erdogan.
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