Imprisonment of 15 Cumhuriyet journalists

A Turkish court in Silivri, near Istanbul, today sentenced 14 associates of the opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet to prison, finding them guilty of terrorism charges, one of their lawyers said.

In this trial, which became a symbol of the attacks on freedom of the press in Turkey, 17 Cumhuriyet associates, most of them journalists, were accused of aiding various "terrorist" organizations. Mainly that they collaborated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara considers the "brain" of the July 2016 coup attempt, accusations that he denies.

The court acquitted three of the accused, lawyer Ozden Ozdemir told Reuters.

The court imposed prison sentences ranging from 2,5 to 7,5 years in prison on the newspaper's employees, Ozdemir said. Another defendant in the case, who did not work for Cumhuriyet, was convicted of his Twitter activities and sentenced to 10 years in prison, the lawyer said.

Investigative journalist Ahmet Sik was sentenced to 7,5 years in prison. The director of the newspaper, Murat Sampuncu, was sentenced to the same sentence.

Cumhuriyet chairman Akin Atalay was sentenced to more than eight years in prison, according to an AFP reporter.

The court also ruled that the case against Jan Dudar, a former Cumhuriyet director, would be pursued separately, according to court documents.

"This is a completely illegal decision. In the end, it's a political affair, "Ozdemir said, noting that appeals would be appealed.

All 14 newspaper contributors were released pending their appeals.

Prosecutors have sought to impose sentences of up to 43 years on the newspaper staff, accusing them of "asymmetric methods of warfare" aimed at President Erdogan.

The Turkish daily, one of the harshest critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdo απορan, dismisses the allegations against its associates as "absurd" and denounces a political trial aimed at silencing the latest independent media in Turkey.

Source