Turkey tries senior journalists on terror charges
Azerbaijan jails dissident over ‘links’ to Erdogan foe
ISTANBUL: Staff from one of Turkey’s most respected opposition newspapers on
Monday rejected as absurd “terror” charges against them on the first day of a trial which has intensified alarm over press freedom under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The 17 defendants from the Cumhuriyet daily were detained from October last year and a dozen of them have now spent more than eight months in jail without being convicted of any crime.
They have been held under a state of emergency imposed after the July 2016 failed coup aimed at ousting Erdogan that the authorities blame on US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen.
The staff — including writers, cartoonists and executives — were applauded by supporters crammed into the Istanbul courtroom as the trial opened, an AFP journalist said.
Supporters released dozens of balloons outside the courthouse, chanting: “Don’t be silenced! A free media is a right!“
If convicted, the defendants face varying terms of up to 43 years in jail.
In an extraordinary coincidence, the trial opened on Turkey’s annual “National Day of the Press.”
Those appearing in court included some of the best known names in Turkish journalism, including the columnist Kadri Gursel, the paper’s Editor-in-Chief Murat Sabuncu, cartoonist Musa Kart as well as its chairman Akin Atalay.
They are charged with supporting three groups considered by Turkey as terror outfits — the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the ultra-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) and Gulen’s movement, which Ankara calls the Fethullah Terror Organization (FETO).
The indictment accuses Cumhuriyet of beginning a “perception operation” with the aim of starting an “asymmetric war” against Erdogan.
But supporters insist the paper has always been bitterly critical of the three groups, including Gulen’s organization. Gulen denies any link to the failed coup.
“To say I was in contact with FETO members is illogical and against good sense,” Gursel told the court.
“There is nothing to justify my jailing — nothing apart from slander,” he added.
Atalay said it was the authorities who were scared. “But Cumhuriyet will not give in... independence and liberty are written into the DNA of the paper.”
Separately on Monday, Azerbaijan jailed a senior opposition figure for alleged ties with Gulen.
Faig Amirov — an aide to the leader of the Popular Front party — was found guilty of “having links with Gulen” and sentenced to three years and three months under a statute that covers inciting social hatred, lawyer Agil Layijev told AFP.
Layijev, however, insisted the charges were “politically-motivated” and served as a pretext for TOULOUSE, France: Protesters have built a nearly-two-meterhigh wall around the entrance to a disused hotel in a French town to try to prevent it being turned into a migrant shelter.
Working under cover of darkness, a few dozen residents of Semeac in the Pyrenees mountains erected a wall, 18 meters long and 1.8 meters high, barring access to the Formule 1 hotel, a spokesman for the group confirmed.
“We are not against taking in migrants,” Laurent Teixeira told AFP. “But you have to take account of the citizens.”
Teixeira accused the authorities of failing to consult residents about the project to turn the former budget hotel into a shelter for up to 85 migrants.
“Nothing is planned for the migrants’ daily life,” he said, arguing that schools and other public services in the town of 5,000 people would be unable to cope with the newcomers.
Protester Hugo Lacoue, a tobacconist, said he was opposed to migrants being hosted in a suburban neighborhood.
The hotel in Semeac is one of 62 budget hostelries bought by the state in order to house some of the asylum-seekers currently sleeping rough on the streets of Paris or the northern port of Calais.
With the pace of migrant arrivals expected to accelerate this summer, the government has come under pressure to create Azerbaijan’s authoritarian government to crack down on an opponents.
“We will appeal the verdict,” he said.
Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan, a staunch ally of Ankara, launched a crackdown on Gulen’s supporters after the failed coup in Turkey.
Amirov was arrested last August after investigators said they found books authored by Gulen in the boot of his car.
The activist, who is also the financial director of the main opposition newspaper, Azadlig, has claimed the more shelters.
More than 2,800 people were evacuated earlier this month from a makeshift camp that sprung up around a packed migrant center in northern Paris, but a new camp is already forming in the area.
Last year, several French towns saw protests over the establishment of migrant shelters but in most places the protests died down after the books were planted after investigators pulled him in for questioning.
Popular Front leader Ali Kerimli said the authorities have stepped up a “repressive campaign targeting me personally, the party and the Azadlig newspaper,” using the pretext of a “made-up case” claiming links to Gulen.
Reporters Without Borders has said it was “very worried about Amirov’s health” and called for his immediate release. migrants moved in.
More than 140 refugees reach Cyprus by boat
Cypriot authorities said a boat carrying over 140 migrants believed to be Syrians, more than half of them women and children, was escorted to shore by the coast guard Monday near the resort of Paphos.
Police said the 143 migrants, including 31 women and 50 children, said they had set off from the Turkish port of Mersin and paid up to $2,000 each for the crossing.
One person was arrested as a suspected people smuggler, while arrangements were being made to take the migrants to a reception center outside the capital Nicosia.
Cyprus, an EU member state located 100 miles from Syria’s Mediterranean coast, has not seen the massive inflow of migrants experienced by Turkey and Greece.