Cumhuriyet’s Mine Söğüt: “Whatever ‘peace’ means, we have to protect it”

In late April 2018, journalists and staff members at Cumhuriyet, Turkey’s oldest newspaper, were forced to watch as 17 of their colleagues were tried and convicted on anti-terror charges at Silivri detention facility.

One of those observers was Cumhuriyet journalist Mine Söğüt, who writes for the paper’s political section. The International Press Institute (IPI) met with Söğüt in Istanbul a day after her colleagues received harsh prison sentences despite a lack of evidence. While three of the accused were acquitted, 14 were sentenced to between two-and-a-half and a little more than eight years in prison.