A left-wing opposition party official will spend one month in prison after an appeals court upheld his conviction over a protest against the Turkish Red Crescent’s sale of relief tents following devastating earthquakes in southern Turkey in February 2023, his party said on Monday.
Kemal Koç, a member of the SOL Party’s Central Executive Committee, was among three party members convicted of resisting police during a demonstration held in İstanbul’s Kadıköy district on March 1, 2023.
Koç told the Cumhuriyet daily that he had committed no crime and was being sent to prison for defending the rights of earthquake survivors. He said he regarded his imprisonment as a badge of honor.
Police detained 77 people during the demonstration, which was also a protest of the government’s response to the earthquakes. Those detained included BirGün reporter Asena Tunca, who was covering the protest. The SOL Party said the trial of 77 defendants on charges of violating Turkey’s Law on Meetings and Demonstrations was still underway.
The controversy erupted after journalist Murat Ağırel revealed that the Red Crescent’s tent-producing subsidiary had sold 2,050 tents to the AHBAP relief organization for 46 million Turkish lira (about $2.4 million at the time) three days after the earthquakes, when hundreds of thousands of survivors were in urgent need of shelter. Then-Red Crescent chairman Kerem Kınık confirmed the sale, saying the tents had been sold at cost and that the transaction was ethical.
Following criminal complaints against Red Crescent executives, an Interior Ministry inspection submitted in September 2024 and an expert report delivered in December 2025 confirmed the tent sales.
Ankara prosecutors closed the investigation on December 29, 2025, without bringing charges. Prosecutors reportedly concluded that no public financial loss had been identified and that the elements of the alleged offenses had not been established.
