Turkey puts on trial 17 staff from anti-Erdogan daily

ISTANBUL — Seventeen directors and journalists from one of Turkey’s most respected opposition newspapers go on trial Monday after spending over eight months behind bars in a case which has raised new alarm over press freedoms under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The suspects were detained from October last year under the state of emergency implemented after the July 15, 2016 failed coup blamed on the USbased preacher Fethullah Gulen.

The opposition fears the emergency has been used to go after anyone who dares defy Erdogan and if convicted, the defendants face varying terms of up to 43 years in jail.

The trial is seen as a test for press freedoms under Erdogan in Turkey, which ranks 155th on the latest Reporters Without Borders world press freedom index, below Belarus and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to the P24 press freedom group, there are 166 journalists behind bars in Turkey, most of whom were arrested under the state of emergency. Erdogan, however, insisted in an interview earlier this month there were just “two real journalists” behind bars in Turkey.

Cumhuriyet (Republic), which was set up in 1924 and is Turkey’s oldest mainstream national title, has been a thorn in the side of Erdogan in recent years. It is one of the few genuine opposition voices in the press, which is dominated by strongly pro-government media and bigger mainstream dailies that are increasingly wary of challenging the authorities.

Among those who will go on trial at the palace of justice in Istanbul are columnist Kadri Gursel, the paper’s editorin-chief Murat Sabuncu, cartoonist Musa Kart, and investigative journalist Ahmet Sik who in 2011 wrote an explosive book

The Imam’s Army exposing the grip Gulen’s movement had on the Turkish state.