page_title: 2017 March for Justice
section_title: March
hierarchical_section_title: 2017 March for Justice / March
caption_attribution_description: Türkçe: Adalet yürüyüşü, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi Genel Başkanı Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu'nun Ankara'dan İstanbul'a kadar adalet talebiyle yürümesi olayıdır.
context_page_description: The March for Justice was a 450 km march from Ankara to Istanbul to protest against arrests that were made as part of the government crackdown following the July 2016 coup d'état attempt. After the coup attempt, the ruling Justice and Development Party government declared a state of emergency. Since then at least 50,000 people have been arrested and another 140,000 people have been removed from their positions. The protest was led by opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, in response to a lengthy prison sentence that Enis Berberoğlu received for allegedly giving the press a video that shows Turkish intelligence smuggling weapons into Syria. The march concluded in Istanbul on 9 July with a rally attended by hundreds of thousands of people, during which Kılıçdaroğlu spoke at length about the effect that the government purge has had on the judiciary and rule of law in Turkey.
  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared the protest march illegal.
context_section_description: The protest was led by opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, with the march being compared to Gandhi's 1930 Salt March. Thousands of protesters participated in the march, carrying signs that read adalet (the Turkish word for "justice") and chanting "rights, law, justice". 
  A diverse group of citizens participated, including members from different political parties, trade unions, as well as ordinary citizens. On July 6, 2017 Bloomberg reported that 30,000 protestors were participating in the march. Marchers have reported difficult conditions, including walking 20 kilometers a day, hot weather and rain. At least one elderly protester has died of cardiac arrest during the march. 
  Protestors gave many different reasons for participating in the March, including a court decision permitting a mining project in Artvin that was opposed by many local residents and other citizens throughout the country. In the aftermath of the July 2016 coup attempt, the government declared a "state of emergency" in which 50,000 Turks have been arrested and a further 140,000 people have been fired or suspended from their jobs, including the chairman of Amnesty International Turkey. Judge Aydin Sefa Akay, a member of the United Nations war crime panel, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison for suspected involvement in the coup attempt. Some who participated in the march had been directly affected by the purges, including a former political science professor who was fired by government decree in April 2017. He was one of the 1,100 academics who were investigated for signing a petition calling for an end to violence in Turkey's southeastern conflict with the Kurdish people. 
  Counter-demonstrations have been held by AKP supporters.
caption: Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu during the March, just before arriving by the Sea of Marmara
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