Ahmet Hüsrev Altan (born 2 March 1950) is a Turkish journalist and author. A working journalist for more than twenty years, he has served in all stages of the profession, from being a night shift reporter to editor in chief in various newspapers. Biography He was born 1950 in Ankara, Turkey to the notable journalist and writer Çetin Altan as the first of two sons. His brother Mehmet Altan is also a journalist, writer and university professor of political economy. Career In addition to having written columns in several Turkish newspapers, including Hürriyet, Milliyet and Radikal, Altan has produced news programming for television. He was fired from Milliyet after writing a column on 17 April 1995 titled "Atakürt", which presented an alternate history of Turkey as a Kurdish state ("Kürdiye") in which ethnic Turks are oppressed and forced to assimilate. For the same column he received a suspended sentence to an imprisonment of 1 year and 8 months and fined about $12'000. In 2007 he became the founding editor-in-chief and lead columnist of the Taraf, a daily Turkish newspaper, and remained in the position until his resignation in December 2012. In September 2008, when Altan published an article titled "Oh, My Brother" dedicated to the victims of the Armenian genocide he was charged under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code for "denigrating Turkishness". The judicial claim was initiated by the far-right "Great Union Party." Altan, along with some of his Taraf associates, usually carried a firearm for self-protection. As the editor of Taraf, Altan was accused of working to silence allegations of the Gülen movement cheating in compulsory public servants’ examinations in Turkey to further their power in the state. On December 14, 2012, Ahmet Altan resigned his post as editor-in-chief of Taraf. With him stepped down his assistant editor Yasemin Çongar, and Neşe Tüzel. The next day, the three departing journalists were joined by columnist Hadi Uluengin. Prosecution During Turkey's media purge after the failed July 2016 coup d'état on September 23, 2016, Altan, was arrested. He is accused of sending "subliminal messages" to encourage 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt planners. In September 2017, while banned from written communications, Altan produced an essay The Writer's Paradox in which he says: 'I am writing these words from a prison cell ... But wait. Before you start playing the drums of mercy for me listen to what I will tell