Turkish Seismologist Arrested After Post About Rape of Women in Earthquake Zone

The police arrested Ahmet Erjyan, a professor of geophysics at Istanbul Technical University, on Tuesday on suspicion of inciting hatred after he made a post on Twitter regarding the rape of women, TGRT reports.

According to the television channel, Erjyan was detained after he posted on Twitter that women were raped in the first two days in the earthquake zone due to the alleged late arrival of military personnel.

At this time, the professor no longer has this message on Twitter, but there are several posts about his visit to Malatya, a city affected by the disaster.

“Erjyan was arrested in Elazig upon the order of the Malatya prosecutor as part of an investigation into inciting hatred,” the report states.

On February 6, a series of earthquakes with magnitudes of 7.7 and 7.6 struck the Kahramanmaras province in southeastern Turkey, with a nine-hour interval. The tremors, which were followed by hundreds of aftershocks, were felt across 11 provinces in the country and in neighboring regions, including Syria. According to the latest reports, more than 44,000 people have died in Turkey. The number of aftershocks has exceeded 11,000, and on Monday, a 5.6 magnitude earthquake hit Malatya.