Turkey Opens Trial of 17 Journalists on Terrorism Charges

ISTANBUL — Seventeen journalists and executives of the last prominent independent newspaper in Turkey, Cumhuriyet, went on trial in Istanbul on Monday, accused of aiding terrorist organizations under a government crackdown against opponents since a failed coup last year.

Two other defendants, a jailed teacher prominent on social media and a former correspondent based in the United States, have been included in the same indictment. The trial, which is expected to come to a provisional decision on Friday, is being seen as a test case for the freedom of the press in Turkey, now the biggest jailer of journalists in the world.

“The picture is clear,” Akin Atalay, the newspaper’s chief executive, a former lawyer, told a sweltering hot courtroom packed with journalist colleagues, families of defendants and international monitors.

“One aim is to silence Cumhuriyet or seize it,” he said. “The second aim is to show other journalists their fate and in practice what will happen if they write what the government does not like.”

Twelve employees of Cumhuriyet — among them senior columnists, the editor and the chief executive — have been in jail for the last nine months. They were accused of pursuing an editorial line that favored Fethullah Gulen, the United States-based cleric accused of masterminding the coup, as well as the outlawed Kurdish nationalist movement the PKK and a third far-left group.

The charges include helping the groups by reporting and writing columns, quoting social media posts, and in some cases being in contact with members of the groups.

Ilhan Tanir, who worked as the paper’s Washington correspondent, has been accused of being a member of Mr. Gulen’s movement. The teacher, Ahmet Kemal Aydogdu, who maintained a popular Twitter account, faces more serious charges of being a leader of a terrorist movement.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faced down a bloody attempt to overthrow his government in July last year in which 249 people were killed. Since then he has imposed a state of emergency and arrested 50,000 people, and he suspended tens of thousands of public servants.

Among them at least 120 journalists have been detained. In a recent interview Mr. Erdogan said only two journalists have been detained and all the other detainees were terrorists.

The trial opened amid fraught scenes as families of the defendants, lawyers and journalists pushed and shoved to gain access to the courtroom. The defendants blew kisses to friends in the public section after being released from their handcuffs.

In testimony, the first to speak were defiant.

“Cumhuriyet is not going to be scared, it is not going to stop,” Mr. Atalay said. “It never had any relationship with a terrorist group. Its only activity is journalistic.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/world/europe/turkey-trial-journalists-terrorism.html

Last edited by Goose (7/25/2017 6:24 am)