Ali Ornek would be jailed if he repeats the perceived offense sometime in the next five years under amendments to Turkey’s criminal code introduced in 2012.

The court sentenced Ornek, foreign news editor for the Communist daily Sol, in a one-day trial that stemmed from a complaint filed by the president’s office in 2011, according to news reports. The June 2012 amendments that legalized this kind of conditional sentence are known as the Third Judicial Package.

Ornek was convicted in connection with comments he posted in 2010 on the blogging platform ITUsozluk, a website on which any user can post definitions of popular titles or phrases. His comment, posted under the definition of local educational institution Abdullah Gul University, said “its graduates would continue to attend the Abdullah Gül’s school of life [marked by] unemployment, bribing, [and] favoritism.”

Ornek told CPJ he would not hesitate to write if he felt the need to do so. His lawyer, Ozgur Urfa, told CPJ that the editor would appeal the verdict.

News.Az