ISTANBUL: Seven staff from the Turkish opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet were provisionally freed on Saturday after nine months in jail, as calls intensified for the release of four journalists still behind bars.
An Istanbul court Friday ordered that the seven be released under judicial control, meaning they remain charged and will have to report to the authorities, although it is rare in Turkey for defendants in such cases to be sent back to jail.
A total of 17 staff from the newspaper — one of the few voices in the media in Turkey to oppose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — had been on trial for aiding “terror” groups, accusations denounced as absurd by supporters.
But despite growing pressure from abroad but also within Turkey for the release of all the defendants, the most prominent journalists from the newspaper were ordered by the court Friday to remain in jail.
The seven freed — including respected cartoonist Musa Kart, books supplement editor Turhan Gunay and the paper’s legal executives — left Silviri jail on the outskirts of Istanbul to cheers and embraces from supporters.
They had been held for 271 days.
“We were taken away from the people we love, our relatives, our work,” said Kart after his release.
But he added: “Believe me, during this period in jail we have felt no hatred, no rancour, we could not live with such thoughts.”
The staff are charged with supporting in their coverage three entities that Turkey considers terror groups — the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the ultra-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), and the movement of Fethullah Gulen, the US-based preacher who Ankara accuses of ordering last year’s coup attempt.
The four remaining in custody include some of the biggest names in Turkish journalism: the commentator Kadri Gursel, investigative journalist Ahmet Sik, the paper’s editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu and chief executive Akin Atalay.
Eight other suspects are also charged but not in jail.
Kart said: “The image of journalists in jail is not flattering for our country and I hope our four friends will come out as soon as possible.”
The Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI), which has pushed for Kart’s release, said the news was “better than could have been expected” but added there was “little comfort” for the families of those returning to jail.
“Deficient justice,” headlined Cumhuriyet, saying the trial had proved to the world that the accusations were “baseless.”
There has been intense international alarm over the case, seen as a test for press freedom under Erdogan’s rule amid the crackdown that followed the failed coup.
The US State Department on Thursday called for the release of all the suspects, saying they were being held “arbitrarily.”
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) described the release of the seven as a “small step in the right direction” but said they should never have been jailed.
“Authorities should put an end to this farcical trial by immediately dropping the transparently retaliatory charges,” said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova.
There have also been signs of growing unease even among supporters of Erdogan’s ruling party over the lengthy detention of the journalists, who have yet to be convicted of any crime.
In a rare public intervention, former president Abdullah Gul, who Erdogan succeeded as head of state in 2014, said Friday that the journalists should be set free.
Meanwhile influential conservative journalist Abdulkadir Selvi — a staunch supporter of Erdogan — said all those on trial should be released “as these are people who are doing journalism.”
He told CNN-Turk there was “no need to invent” ties between Cumhuriyet and Gulen, calling on the authorities to focus on trying genuine members of the movement.
The next hearing is set for September 11. If convicted, they face varying terms of up to 43 years in jail.
Prosecutors meanwhile said they would file new accusations against Sik over an incendiary defense statement he made on Wednesday where he slammed the ruling party’s past cooperation with Gulen.
Turkey newspaper staff provisionally freed as pressure grows for journalists
Turkey newspaper staff provisionally freed as pressure grows for journalists
Turkiye’s top diplomat meets Syria’s new leader in Damascus
- Hakan Fidan had announced on Friday that he planned to travel to Damascus to meet Syria’s new leaders
- Turkiye’s spy chief Ibrahim Kalin had earlier visited the city on December 12, just a few days after Bashar Assad’s fall
A video released by the Anadolu state news agency showed the two men greeting each other.
No details of where the meeting took place in the Syrian capital were released by the ministry.
Fidan had announced on Friday that he planned to travel to Damascus to meet Syria’s new leaders, who ousted Syria’s strongman Bashar Assad after a lightning offensive.
Turkiye’s spy chief Ibrahim Kalin had earlier visited the city on December 12, just a few days after Assad’s fall.
Kalin was filmed leaving the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, surrounded by bodyguards, as broadcast by the private Turkish channel NTV.
Turkiye has been a key backer of the opposition to Assad since the uprising against his rule began in 2011.
Besides supporting various militant groups, it has welcomed Syrian dissenters and millions of refugees.
However, Fidan has rejected claims by US president-elect Donald Trump that the militants’ victory in Syria constituted an “unfriendly takeover” of the country by Turkiye.
Syria’s de facto ruler reassures minorities, meets Lebanese Druze leader
- Ahmed Al-Sharaa said no sects would be excluded in Syria in what he described as ‘a new era far removed from sectarianism’
- Walid Jumblatt said at the meeting that Assad’s ouster should usher in new constructive relations between Lebanon and Syria
Syria’s de facto ruler Ahmed Al-Sharaa hosted Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt on Sunday in another effort to reassure minorities they will be protected after Islamist militants led the ouster of Bashar Assad two weeks ago.
Sharaa said no sects would be excluded in Syria in what he described as “a new era far removed from sectarianism.”
Sharaa heads the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the main group that forced Assad out on Dec. 8. Some Syrians and foreign powers have worried he may impose strict Islamic governance on a country with numerous minority groups such as Druze, Kurds, Christians and Alawites.
“We take pride in our culture, our religion and our Islam. Being part of the Islamic environment does not mean the exclusion of other sects. On the contrary, it is our duty to protect them,” he said during the meeting with Jumblatt, in comments broadcast by Lebanese broadcaster Al Jadeed.
Jumblatt, a veteran politician and prominent Druze leader, said at the meeting that Assad’s ouster should usher in new constructive relations between Lebanon and Syria. Druze are an Arab minority who practice an offshoot of Islam.
Sharaa, dressed in a suit and tie rather than the military fatigues he favored in his militant days, also said he would send a government delegation to the southwestern Druze city of Sweida, pledging to provide services to its community and highlighting Syria’s “rich diversity of sects.”
Seeking to allay worries about the future of Syria, Sharaa has hosted numerous foreign visitors in recent days, and has vowed to prioritize rebuilding Syria, devastated by 13 years of civil war.
Pope Francis again condemns ‘cruelty’ of Israeli strikes on Gaza
- Comes a day after the pontiff lamented an Israeli airstrike that killed seven children from one family on Friday
- ‘And with pain I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty, of the children being machine-gunned, of the bombings of schools and hospitals. What cruelty’
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis doubled down Sunday on his condemnation of Israel’s strikes on the Gaza Strip, denouncing their “cruelty” for the second time in as many days despite Israel accusing him of “double standards.”
“And with pain I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty, of the children being machine-gunned, of the bombings of schools and hospitals. What cruelty,” the pope said after his weekly Angelus prayer.
It comes a day after the 88-year-old Argentine lamented an Israeli airstrike that killed seven children from one family on Friday, according to Gaza’s rescue agency.
“Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war,” the pope told members of the government of the Holy See.
His remarks on Saturday prompted a sharp response from Israel.
An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman described Francis’s intervention as “particularly disappointing as they are disconnected from the true and factual context of Israel’s fight against jihadist terrorism — a multi-front war that was forced upon it starting on October 7.”
“Enough with the double standards and the singling out of the Jewish state and its people,” he added.
“Cruelty is terrorists hiding behind children while trying to murder Israeli children; cruelty is holding 100 hostages for 442 days, including a baby and children, by terrorists and abusing them,” the Israeli statement said.
This was a reference to the Hamas Palestinian militants who attacked Israel, killed many civilians and took hostages on October 7, 2023, triggering the Gaza war.
The unprecedented attack resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, the majority of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
That toll includes hostages who died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
At least 45,259 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in the Palestinian territory, the majority of them civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Those figures are taken as reliable by the United Nations.
Iran’s supreme leader says Syrian youth will resist incoming government
- Iran had provided crucial support to Assad throughout Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war
- Iran’s supreme leader accused the United States and Israel of plotting against Assad’s government
TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday said that young Syrians will resist the new government emerging after the overthrow of President Bashar Assad as he again accused the United States and Israel of sowing chaos in the country.
Iran had provided crucial support to Assad throughout Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, which erupted after he launched a violent crackdown on a popular uprising against his family’s decades-long rule. Syria had long served as a key conduit for Iranian aid to Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in an address on Sunday that the “young Syrian has nothing to lose” and suffers from insecurity following Assad’s fall.
“What can he do? He should stand with strong will against those who designed and those who implemented the insecurity,” Khamenei said. “God willing, he will overcome them.”
He accused the United States and Israel of plotting against Assad’s government in order to seize resources, saying: “Now they feel victory, the Americans, the Zionist regime and those who accompanied them.”
Iran and its militant allies in the region have suffered a series of major setbacks over the past year, with Israel battering Hamas in Gaza and landing heavy blows on Hezbollah before they agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon last month.
Khamenei denied that such groups were proxies of Iran, saying they fought because of their own beliefs and that the Islamic Republic did not depend on them. “If one day we plan to take action, we do not need proxy force,” he said.
Four killed in helicopter crash at Turkish hospital
- Footage from the site showed debris from the crash scattered around the area outside the hospital building
ANKARA: Four people were killed in southwest Turkiye on Sunday when an ambulance helicopter collided with a hospital building and crashed into the ground.
The helicopter was taking off from the Mugla Training and Research Hospital, carrying two pilots, a doctor and another medical worker, the health ministry said in a statement.
Mugla’s regional governor, Idris Akbiyik, told reporters the helicopter first hit the fourth floor of the hospital building before crashing into the ground. No one inside the building or on the ground was hurt. The cause of the accident, which took place during heavy fog, was being investigated.
Footage from the site showed debris from the crash scattered around the area outside the hospital building, with several ambulances and emergency teams at the scene.
