Thousands assembled on Friday across Istanbul to protest the arrest of two leading journalists on charges of espionage above a report alleging that the intelligence services in the nation had sent arms cargoes to Islamist rebels in Syria.
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According to earlier media reports, the two had faced a number of charges including membership in an armed terrorist organisation and the publishing of material in violation of state security following the release of the footage.
“This is a judicial process, and we are following it”, said the official, who declined to be identified either by name or department.
Reporters Without Borders ranked Turkey 149th out of 180 in its 2015 press freedom index last month, warning of a “dangerous surge in censorship”.
People hold placards reading “Free media can not be silenced” in front of the Cumhuriyet daily headquarters, on November 27,2015 in Istanbul.
“They ask us why we published that story”, Dundar said, according to BBC.
But Hadi Salihoglu, the Istanbul public prosecutor, disagreed.
Police use tear-inducing agent against demonstrators during a protest in Ankara yesterday against the arrest of journalists Can Dundar and Erdem Gul.
Cumhuriyet, which means “Republic” in Turkish, is managed by a charitable trust, making it one of the few operationally independent newspapers in a landscape where the press tends to be the property of large holding companies with significant commercial interests and government ties.
Cumhuriyet printed an article in May that was accompanied by video revealing local authorities confiscating crates on the rear of a truck. “Whoever wrote this story can pay a significant cost because of this”, Mr Erdogan said on television in May.
Dundar, speaking before his trial on Thursday, expressed defiance. Sites that did not comply with a court order to remove it were blocked on the basis of national interest and national security.
Erdogan claimed the trucks were set to deliver humanitarian aid to Bayirbucak Turkmens and that the journalists were complicit in “sabotaging” this aid merely to harm the image of himself and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.
Those Turkmen groups have been a central aspect of the recent conflict between Turkey and Russian Federation.
“All opposition press organizations that are abiding by the ethics of journalism and trying to do their journalism are under threat and under attack”, she said.
Tayfun Atay, a colleague at Cumhuriyet and longtime friend of Dundar’s, told CNN that the current political climate punishes opposition journalists. “We are not traitors, spies, or heroes; we are journalists”. “I am proud of them”. The Turkish newspaper “Hurriyet” reported that Dundar said that there was no reason to feel sad for his arrest.
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“We are very concerned by the arrests of Can Dundar and Erdem Gul and what appears to be yet another media outlet under pressure”, the U.S. Embassy said on Twitter.
