IPI Executive Board Chair John Yearwood was in Turkey today to show solidarity with independent daily newspaper Cumhuriyet and with journalists and administrators from the paper who are currently on trial over accusations that the paper’s reporting lent support to terrorists.
Yearwood visited the newspaper’s offices in Istanbul, where he met with senior editors and the head of the newspaper’s foundation.
He is set to attend the latest court proceedings tomorrow in the case targeting 18 journalists, executives and others from the newspaper, including three who have been held in pre-trial detention since 2016.
Yearwood also met earlier today with representatives of the Journalists Association of Turkey, Reporters Without Borders and Pen International.
“I’m here this week as the world marks the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists to convey a message of international support and solidarity with journalists in Turkey,” said Yearwood, former world editor of the Miami Herald. “It’s important that our colleagues here know that the world is paying attention to the restrictions they face when doing their jobs. Journalism is not a crime.”
Prosecutors are demanding prison terms of up to 43 years on charges that Cumhuriyet’s news reports and its criticism of government policy supported terrorist groups, including the movement led by U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gülen – whom Turkey’s government blames for the July 2016 coup attempt – as well as outlawed militant Kurdish and leftist groups.
IPI and other international observers argue that the case is intended to silence Cumhuriyet, one of the country’s few remaining opposition voices, and send a message to others who might dare to publish news or criticism deemed unwelcome by the ruling political establishment.
Turkey, with about 150 journalists behind bars, is the world’s leading jailer of journalists. The vast majority were detained in a sweeping crackdown on dissent amid an ongoing state of emergency declared after the 2016 coup attempt. The state of emergency, which has accelerated the government’s consolidation of control over almost every segment of society, has led to the dismissal or detention of over 100,000 civil servants, and the closure by decree of some 170 media outlets and hundreds of civil society organisations.
Four Cumhuriyet journalists and administrators are currently behind bars: Chief Executive Akin Atalay, Editor-in-Chief Murat Sabuncu, investigative journalist Ahmet Şık and accountant Emre İper.
Tomorrow’s proceedings, following hearings in July and September, marks the one-year anniversary of the raids in which Sabuncu and eight of the other defendants were detained. Atalay was taken into custody in early November and Şık was detained in late December. İper has been imprisoned since April.
Turkey held 12 journalists and administrators from the newspaper in its maximum-security Silivri prison until July, when the court ordered seven freed pending trial; an eighth, columnist and IPI Executive Board Member Kadri Gürsel, was released in late September.
