Journalists’ defiant stand as trial starts

TURKEY: Journalists from one of Turkey’s few remaining independent newspapers told an Istanbul court yesterday they were facing persecution for being ‘‘independent, questioning and critical’’ at the start of their trial on terrorism charges.

Seventeen reporters, editors, columnists and cartoonists from the Cumhuriyet newspaper appeared in court for the opening of a case which has become a symbol of the collapsing press freedom in Turkey under the government of Recep Tayipp Erdogan.

Turkish prosecutors accuse the journalists of being members of a terrorist organisation, mainly the Islamist Gulen movement, which Erdogan blames for last year’s attempted coup against him.

But in defiant statements before an Istanbul courtroom packed with human rights activists and foreign diplomats, the journalists said they were victims of a government crackdown.

‘‘I am not here because I knowingly and willingly helped a terrorist organisation, but because I am an independent, questioning and critical journalist,’’ said Kadri Gursel, a columnist for the paper.

Gursel had been a strident critic of the Gulen movement but prosecutors now say he was a secret member of the group, led by an exiled cleric in the United States. Gursel faces 15 years in prison if convicted.

Others in the group of defendants, including Akin Atalay, the Cumhuriyet chief executive, face up to 43 years in prison. Out of the 17 journalists, 12 of them are being held in prison during the trial and most have been detained since the autumn of 2016.

Turkey is the world’s leading jailer of journalists, says the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, and about 160 are in jail, according to the Turkish Journalists’ Association.

The deputy head of mission for the British Consulate General in Istanbul attended the opening day of the trial as well other European diplomats and a delegation of Green MEPs from Germany. Among the MEPs was Rebecca Harms, a friend of Ahmet Sik, one of those in the dock.

‘‘It’s clearly a political trial, it’s to threaten independent journalists, especially ones like Ahmet Sik. He was one of the most known investigative journalists in Turkey and he is in prison because of his investigations and because of the quality of his articles and not because he is a terrorist,’’ she said.

Erdogan has denied cracking down on the free press and has insisted his government is only interested in pursuing terrorists.

In the wake of last year’s coup, Erdogan and his allies have enjoyed overwhelmingly positive coverage in state media and from many private outlets, leaving Cumhuriyet as one of only a handful of media organisations prepared to criticise the government.

A British Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘‘We are deeply concerned by the situation of Cumhuriyet newspaper executives and journalists, including their prolonged pre-trial detention.’’

– Telegraph Group