Erdogan crackdown on journos starts
SEVENTEEN directors and journalists from one of Turkey’s most respected opposition newspapers went on trial yesterday after spending more than eight months behind bars in a case which has raised new alarm over press freedoms under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The suspects were detained from October last year under the state of emergency implemented after the July 15 failed coup last year, blamed on the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen.
The opposition fears the emergency has been used to go after anyone who dares defy Erdogan and if convicted, the defendants face varying terms of up to 43 years in jail.
The trial is seen as a test for press freedoms under Erdogan in Turkey, which ranks 155th on the latest Reporters Without Borders (RSF) world press freedom index, below Belarus and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
According to the P24 press freedom group, there are 166 journalists behind bars in Turkey, most of whom were arrested under the state of emergency.
Cumhuriyet (Republic), which was set up in 1924 and is Turkey’s oldest mainstream national title, has been a thorn in the side of Erdogan in recent years. It is one of the few genuine opposition voices in the press, which is dominated by strongly pro-government media and bigger mainstream dailies that are increasingly wary of challenging the authorities.
A total of 17 staff of the newspaper – including writers, cartoonists and executives – will go on trial at the imposing palace of justice in Istanbul.
Those appearing in court include some of the best known names in Turkish journalism including the columnist Kadri Gursel, the paper’s editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu and the respected cartoonist Musa Kart.
Also being tried in the case is the investigative journalist Ahmet Sik, who in 2011 wrote an explosive book The Imam’s Army, exposing the grip Gulen’s movement had on the Turkish state.
The book was initially banned and caused a sensation when published on the internet as 000Kitap (000Book).
Eleven of the 17 suspects including Gursel, Sabuncu, Kart and Sik, are held in jail with the other six free under judicial supervision. Being tried in absentia in the case is the paper’s former editor-in-chief Can Dundar, who was last year handed a five-year-and-10month jail term over a front-page story accusing the government of sending weapons to Syria.
He has now fled
Those held will on the first day of the trial have been imprisoned for 267 days, with the exception of Sik, who has been held for 206 days. Since their arrests, Cumhuriyet has continued publishing the columns of the jailed journalists but with a blank white space instead of text. Turkey for Germany.
Supporters have labelled the charges against the newspaper staff as absurd and simply an attempt to muzzle the newspaper.
They are charged with supporting in the newspaper’s writings no less than 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 Organisation (Feto).
But supporters insist the paper has always been bitterly critical of the three groups, including Gulen’s organisation. Gulen denies any link to the failed coup.
The indictment accuses Cumhuriyet of beginning a “perception operation” with the aim of starting an “asymmetric war” against Erdogan.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in an opinion released last month, said it found that the detention of the staff was arbitrary and that they should be immediately released and given the right to compensation.
It said their imprisonment “resulted from the exercise of their rights and freedoms” and said it was concerned by the “vagueness” of the charges of aiding terror groups. — AFP