Dundar, editor-in-chief of newspaper Cumhuriyet, and the daily’s Ankara bureau chief, Gul, were referred to the court by Istanbul Prosecutor Irfan Fidan earlier Thursday, who interrogated the two suspects for two hours.
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Two Turkish journalists, Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, with the newspaper Cumhuriyet, have been jailed on espionage and terror charges in relation to articles they wrote concerning Turkish government shipments of arms to Syrian militants, reports the Globe and Mail. The newspaper said the photos were from January 2014 and were proof that Turkey was smuggling weapons to Syria, according to AP. “I think there is a problem with the labels here, because all the world is focused on ISIS, but there are other jihadist groups there, and they have links with Al-Nusra or ISIS, [while] Turkey says “we are helping that groups – not ISIS”, the Turkish journalist added.
“As you know, an investigation has been launched into our reports on intelligence agency MIT trucks carrying weapons”.
There has been growing concern about deteriorating press freedoms in Turkey under Erdogan and in particular over the numbers of journalists facing legal proceedings on accusations of insulting or criticising top officials.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed the allegations as baseless this week: “Those trucks were trucks carrying aid to our Bayirbucak Turkmen”, he said, referring to a Turkic tribe backed by Turkey that’s resident in northern Syria, where civil war has been raging for four years. Reporters With out Borders rates the country 149th of 180 countries in its 2015 Press Freedom Index. “This will ultimately strengthen Turkey’s democracy”, Mark Toner, deputy department spokesperson, said in a statement.
Dundar and Gul “did not give in”, Atay said.
Meanwhile, the European and International Federations of Journalists, the EFJ and the IFJ, on Friday urged Turkey to immediately release the two journalists, who are now being held in Istanbul. We are not traitors, spy, or heroes; we are journalists. The indictment claimed Ozkok’s writing following the tragic death of a Syrian refugee boy, whose body was washed ashore a Turkish beach, exceeded the limits of “acceptable criticism”, Daily Hurriyet said.
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They’d face life imprisonment if found guilty.
