Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Istanbul office of an opposition newspaper Friday, accusing the government of silencing critics and attempting to cover-up a scandal after two journalists were jailed on terror and espionage charges for their reports on alleged Turkish arms smuggling to Syria.
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In June, Cumhuriyet published leaked video footage that purported to show the county’s intelligence agency sending weapons to Syria.
He has repeated the claims by authorities that Bayırbucak Turkmens were the intended recipients of aid from the truck.
As to whether the trucks were carrying arms: “So what if they were, so what if they weren’t?” he said.
Dundar’s imprisonment marks the fulfillment of a promise for Erdogan. “I will not let this go”. “But it’s for common good to bring them to light”, Dundar, who denied the allegations, told reporters.
The State Department calls on Turkish authorities to ensure that all individuals and organizations – including but not limited to the media – are free to voice a full range of opinions and criticism, in accordance with Turkey’s constitutional guarantees of media freedom and freedom of expression. It’s now 149th of 180 countries, making it the lowest- ranking in Europe and one of the worst among the world’s major democracies.
Cumhuriyet was awarded the media watchdog’s 2015 Press Freedom Prize just last week, with Dundar travelling to Strasbourg to receive the award.
“All opposition press organizations that are abiding by the ethics of journalism and trying to do their journalism are under threat and under attack”, Figen Yuksekdag, co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, said at the protest.
“We are very concerned by the arrests… and what appears to be yet another media outlet under pressure”, the United States embassy wrote on Twitter yesterday.
Turkey has said it only supports moderate rebels in Syria, although it wants to see the Assad government toppled. Cases opened against them sought jail sentences of four and a half years. “Of course, this prosecution will help enlighten how these incidents took place, rather than how we covered this story”, Dündar said shortly before his court appearance on Thursday, the Hurriyet Daily News reported.
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Interestingly, the journalists weren’t arrested right after the story was published, because it happened before a parliamentary election in the country.
