Şahap Kavcıoğlu, a deputy from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said academics, journalists and politicians who signed a peace declaration in 2016 do not deserve to live, Gazete Duvar reported on Tuesday.

Signatories of a peace declaration titled “We Will Not Be a Party to This [Turkish state’s] Crime” and issued in January 2016 are facing accusations of disseminating terrorist propaganda.

“They smeared Turkey. They wrote that Turkey was carrying out a massacre and they signed it. With whom did they do this? Can there be such treason against the state? None of the academics, politicians and journalists who signed this declaration would even be given the right to life in any country. Putting them in prison aside, they would not be given the right to life,” said Kavcıoğlu during a commission meeting in Parliament.

Turkish Minute