The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Turkish appeals court: Five "Cumhuriyet" journalists released - after 142 days in prison

2019-09-13T06:10:35.616Z


A Turkish court of appeal has released five journalists convicted of terrorist support. After being detained for almost five months, they were given prison sentences of many years in prison.



In Turkey, five former journalists of the government-critical newspaper "Cumhuriyet" have been released prematurely.

After 142 days behind bars, the journalists - among them the well-known cartoonist Musa Kart - were greeted by supporters yesterday when they left the prison in the city of Kocaeli in the northwest of the country.

A few hours earlier, a Turkish appeals court ordered the release of journalists. Their conviction last year had been justified by "reporting terrorist groups". At that time, imprisonment between two and a half and eight years against a total of 14 defendants.

Accused of supporting the exiled US-based preacher Fethullah Gülen, numerous journalists and activists were arrested after the failed coup attempt of 2016 and thousands of state servants were released.

Gülen was accused of being behind the coup attempt against head of state Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which he denies. Erdogan had repeatedly accused journalists of promoting terrorism through their work.

Among the freedmen, however, it said in the state news agency Anadolu, they would be subject in the future, an exit barrier. Another detained employee, the accountant Emre Iper, has to stay in prison.

"Cumhuriyet" was founded in 1924 and is one of the few Turkish newspapers that is not in the hands of media moguls but belongs to an independent foundation.

The paper kept coming into conflict with the Turkish government. Her former editor-in-chief, Can Dündar, fled to Germany after being sentenced to five years and ten months in Istanbul in 2016 for an article on alleged arms sales by Turkey to Islamists in Syria.

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2019-09-13

You may like

Life/Entertain 2024-03-28T14:07:02.319Z
News/Politics 2024-03-15T16:46:13.333Z
News/Politics 2024-02-20T14:21:00.321Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.