The letter below was sent by IPI Executive Board Member Kadri Gürsel to IPI members on the eve of the four-day final hearing in the trial of over a dozen journalists, including Gürsel, with Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper. The journalists are charged with terrorism-related offences for their critical coverage of Turkey’s government.

Dear Fellow IPI Members,

The final hearing of the trial against Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper will be held this week, April 24 to 27, at the infamous Silivri prison complex situated at the western confines of Istanbul province. 15 co-defendants and their lawyers will present their final defences against terror accusations.

Cumhuriyet is 94 years old, thus the oldest newspaper in Turkey. It’s well known for its pro-secular, centre-left-leaning editorial tendencies and interaction with Kemalist republican values and set of principles.

Among the defendants are Editor-in-Chief Murat Sabuncu and reporter Ahmet Şık, both IPI members who were released from jail on March 9 following pre-trial detention of 16 and 14 months, respectively. Other defendants include cartoonist Musa Kart and book supplement editor Turhan Günay, who were jailed for nine months before being released last July. Akın Atalay, the chair of the Executive Committee of the Cumhuriyet Foundation, is the only defendant remaining in jail.

And I myself am a defendant in the case, having already been imprisoned for 11 months.

We are accused of deliberately and consciously helping multiple armed terror organizations at once without being members of them. These organizations mentioned in the indictment are “FETO” (Fetullahist Terror Organization – official designation), formerly called Cemaat (“Congregation”) when it used to be a de-facto coalition partner of the ruling AKP party; the Kurdish separatist group PKK; and the extreme-left DHKP-C.

Prosecutors are seeking prison terms against the defendants ranging from seven-and-a-half to 15 years.

The so-called “proof” for this farcical accusation of helping terror organizations consists only of headlines, news stories, newspapers columns, tweets and some phone calls or SMS messages coming from people using an encrypted communication application called ByLock. Having this app uploaded on a mobile device is considered as solid proof of allegiance to FETO by the judiciary. But in the Cumhuriyet case, the prosecutor has categorically disregarded the very public nature of journalism, arguing that the simple fact that journalists have been called by people who have the ByLock app on their phone is proof of their support for a terror organization.

In sum, the case against Cumhuriyet, including the long arbitrary detentions and the flimsy indictments with no real proof in them, is itself evidence that freedom of the press and freedom of expression – not to mention independence of the judiciary – are abominably and dreadfully denied in Turkey.

Sentencing any of the Cumhuriyet co-defendants can only make this picture grimmer.

Best regards,

Kadri Gürsel

Additional information and resources:
Background on the Cumhuriyet trial
IPI FreeTurkeyJournalists campaign