It was the first hearing of the Cumhuriyet case, which, by the end of the week, led to the release of seven imprisoned employees of the daily. But Cumhuriyet Editor-in-Chief Murat Sabuncu, IPI Executive Board Member and journalist Kadri Gürsel, investigative journalist Ahmet Şık and Cumhuriyet Foundation Executive Board Director and lawyer Akın Atalay were sent back to prison.
They are accused of changing the newspaper’s editorial policy to support Fethullah Gülen’s movement, which the government accuses of launching the July 2016 coup attempt, as well as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C).
