Ümit Özdağ performs prayer of gratitude in Ankara

The second hearing of the case in which Zafer Party Chairman Ümit Özdağ was detained on charges of "inciting the public to hatred and hostility" was held at the Istanbul 18th Criminal Court of First Instance.

Özdağ, who was sentenced to 2 years and 4 months in prison, was released from Silivri Prison, where he had been detained for approximately 5 months.

In his first statement after his release yesterday, Özdağ said, "The first thing I planned to do as soon as I got out of here was to perform a prayer of gratitude at the mosque here, but the gendarmerie did not allow it." The DMM, however, had denied Özdağ's statement.

Özdağ, who arrived in Ankara during the night, went to the Hacı Bayram Veli Mosque with his staff and performed a prayer of gratitude.

When a citizen at the mosque asked, "Will we continue without fear?", Özdağ replied, "Of course we will, who are we going to be afraid of?" Özdağ, who received well-wishes from citizens, made statements to journalists after the prayer.

Özdağ's statements are as follows:

"It is very valuable to have regained freedom after an unjust detention and an unjust sentence. The application of two different legal standards—one for the government and one for the opposition—causes an extraordinarily bad social fragmentation. While in prison, I was talking to a lawyer who visited me about the Israel-Iran war. This lawyer is a nationalist, a lawyer coming from the Turkish nationalist tradition. He suddenly stopped and said: 'If there were a war that Turkey participated in, I would take up arms just so it wouldn't be shameful.' I thought to myself, 'Oh no, oh no.' This means that social polarization can reach these levels. We need to treat this immediately.

You cannot explain to the nation that the only municipalities committing corruption are CHP municipalities and that there is no corruption to be tried in AK Party municipalities. Or, when you are the daughter of a bureaucrat close to the AK Party and you cause a traffic accident and kill someone, you are tried without arrest, receive a 4-year sentence, and do not spend a single day in prison because the case is ongoing; yet if a young person of that age stays in a cell for 76 days just for waving a Turkish flag, you cannot say 'there is a law in this country, and that law covers everyone.'

Now, developments in Iran have also shown that Iran is a very divided society. Such division should never be created in Turkey. We should fight and argue about our own issues internally, but we must be able to stand as a single fist against an enemy outside."

"I HOPE WE ENSURE ONE NATION, ONE LAW"

"Again, Çetiner Çetin said on Habertürk that 60 percent of those spying for Mossad are Afghan refugees in Iran. You know I have been saying this for years. And I spent 150 days in prison for this. They called Ümit Özdağ 'xenophobic.' I am not xenophobic. I am someone who was born in a foreign country, completed my university and master's education abroad, and worked in the field of international relations. In other words, I am a person who has had 100 times more contact with foreigners than a standard Turkish citizen. But the refugee issue, the illegal issue, mass migrations in the age of global warming—these are different matters, and the threats they pose are certainly not to be underestimated. In summary, this is the situation. I hope we ensure one nation, one law."

After performing his prayer, Ümit Özdağ watched Anıtkabir for a while at Hacı Bayram, accompanied by the view of Ankara. During his conversation with party officials, Özdağ said, "The best thing in prison is dreaming; I was getting out in my dreams."

Ümit Özdağ and his entourage left Hacı Bayram to visit Anıtkabir.