ISTANBUL: The controversial trial of staff from Turkey’s main opposition newspaper resumed on Monday in a case seen as a test for press freedom under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The case, which opened in Istanbul in July, involves 17 current and former writers, cartoonists and executives from Cumhuriyet (“Republic“) who are being tried on “terror” charges in a move denounced by supporters as absurd.
For government critics, the case is emblematic of the erosion of freedom following last year’s failed coup when Ankara launched a massive crackdown targeting those with alleged links to the putschists as well as opponents.
The secular daily is one of the few voices in the Turkish media to oppose Erdogan, with its embarrassing scoops causing anger in the halls of power.
On July 28, an Istanbul court freed seven of the newspaper’s staff after 271 days, including respected cartoonist Musa Kart and Turhan Gunay, editor of the books supplement.
But some of the paper’s most prominent staff remain in custody, among them commentator Kadri Gursel, investigative journalist Ahmet Sik, editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu and chief executive Akin Atalay.
Eight other suspects have also been charged but are not being held in prison.
Sik has been held behind bars for 255 days while the other three have been jailed for 316 days. If convicted, they face varying terms of up to 43 years in jail.
Sik is the author of an explosive 2011 book called “The Imam’s Army” which exposed how followers of influential Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen infiltrated the Turkish bureaucracy and built ties with the ruling party which have since collapsed.
Once a close ally of Erdogan who is now in self-imposed exile in the United States, Gulen is wanted on charges of ordering the failed coup, with Ankara arresting more than 50,000 people on suspicion of links to his movement. He denies the charges.
The second session of hearings is taking place adjacent to the high-security Silivri prison on the outskirts of Istanbul where the men are being held.
Those on trial are charged with using their position to support the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the ultra-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), and the Gulen movement.
Ankara has branded all three terror organizations.
Also on trial but in absentia is the paper’s former editor-in-chief Can Dundar, who was last year sentenced to five years and 10 months in jail over a front-page story accusing the government of sending weapons to Syria.
Dundar has now fled Turkey for Germany.
In the indictment, the newspaper was accused of an “intense perception operation” targeting both Turkey and Erdogan using the tactics of an “asymmetric war.”
The paper’s supporters claim the charges amount to “punishment,” insisting Cumhuriyet has always been strongly opposed to the three groups.
The daily’s front page on Monday was headlined “We want justice” with images of those still imprisoned.
Writing in Sunday’s edition of the paper, Asli Aydintasbas, Cumhuriyet columnist and a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the case was the “symbolic trial” of this era.
“This case will go down in the history books as the most concrete and simultaneously the most absurd example of institutional failures and the problem of the judiciary in this period,” she added.
Cartoonist Kart on Saturday depicted a miserable Lady Justice dressed in white, waiting outside the Silivri complex holding pictures of those inside with a speech bubble saying: “I am waiting for my sons.”
According to the P24 press freedom group, there are 170 journalists behind bars in Turkey, most of whom were arrested after the coup in a move which has alarmed Turkey’s Western allies.
Turkey ranks 155 out of 180 on the latest RSF (Reporters Without Borders) world press freedom index.
Trial of Turkey opposition newspaper staff resumes
Trial of Turkey opposition newspaper staff resumes
More than half of Syrian children out of school: Save the Children to AFP
The overwhelming majority of Syrian children are also in need of immediate humanitarian assistance including food, the charity said, with at least half of them requiring psychological help to overcome war trauma.
“Around 3.7 million children are out of school and they require immediate action to reintegrate them in school,” Rasha Muhrez, the charity’s Syria director, told AFP in an interview from the capital Damascus, adding “this is more than half of the children at school age.”
While Syrians have endured more than a decade of conflict, the rapid rebel offensive that toppled president Bashar Assad on December 8 caused further disruption, with the UN reporting more than 700,000 people newly displaced.
“Some of the schools were used as shelters again due to the new wave of displaced people,” Muhrez told AFP.
The war, which began in 2011 after Assad’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters, has devastated Syria’s economy and public infrastructure leaving many children vulnerable.
Muhrez said “about 7.5 million children are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance.”
“We need to make sure the children can come back to education, to make sure that they have access again to health, to food and that they are protected,” Muhrez said.
“Children were deprived of their basic rights including access to education, to health care, to protection, to shelter,” by the civil war, but also natural disasters and economic crises, she said.
Syria’s war spiralled rapidly from 2011 into a major civil conflict that has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.
More than one in four Syrians now live in extreme poverty according to the World Bank, with the deadly February 2023 earthquake bringing more misery.
Many children who grew up during the war have been traumatized by the violence, said Muhrez.
“This had a huge impact, a huge traumatic impact on them, for various reasons, for losses: a parent, a sibling, a friend, a house,” she said.
According to Save the Children, around 6.4 million children are in need of psychological help.
Muhrez also warned that “continued coercive measures and sanctions on Syria have the largest impact on the Syrian people themselves.”
Syria has been under strict Western sanctions aimed at Assad’s government, including from the United States and European Union, since early in the war.
On Sunday, Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa expressed hope that the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump would lift sanctions.
“It’s very difficult for us to continue responding to the needs and to reach people in need with limited resources with these restrictive measures,” she said.
Israel UN envoy warns Houthis risk sharing same fate as Hamas, Hezbollah
- Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians
NEW YORK: Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations issued on Monday what he called a final warning to Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militants to halt their missile attacks on Israel, saying they otherwise risked the same “miserable fate” as Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria’s Bashar Assad if they persisted.
He also warned Tehran that Israel has the ability to strike any target in the Middle East, including in Iran, adding that Israel would not tolerate attacks by Iranian proxies.
Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli fire in Gaza.
“To the Houthis, perhaps you have not been paying attention to what has happened to the Middle East over the past year. Well, allow me to remind you what has happened to Hamas, to Hezbollah, to Assad, to all those who have attempted to destroy us. Let this be your final warning. This is not a threat. It is a promise. You will share the same miserable fate,” Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon told the UN Security Council.
Speaking before the meeting, Danon told reporters: “Israel will defend its people. If 2,000 kilometers is not enough to separate our children from the terror, let me assure you, it will not be enough to protect their terror from our strengths.”
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the Houthis that Israel was “just getting started” following Israeli strikes on multiple Houthi-linked targets in Yemen, including Sanaa airport, ports on the country’s west coast and two power plants.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was about to board a plane at the airport when it came under attack by Israel. A crew member on the plane was injured, he said.
Israel’s elimination of the top leaders of the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah and the destruction of their military structure along with Assad’s collapse represent a succession of monumental wins for Netanyahu.
Briefing the Security Council meeting, Assistant UN Secretary General for the Middle East Khaled Khiari reiterated grave concern about the escalation in violence, calling on the Houthis to halt attacks on Israel and for international and humanitarian law to be respected.
“Further military escalation could jeopardize regional stability with adverse political, security, economic and humanitarian repercussions,” Khiari said.
“Millions in Yemen, Israel and throughout the region, would continue to bear the brunt of escalation with no end.”
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, while condemning Houthi missile attacks on Israel, also criticized Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Yemen, as well those by what he called the “Anglo-Saxon coalition” of US and British warships in the Red Sea, saying they were “clearly not proportional.”
Syria appoints Maysaa Sabrine as first woman to lead central bank, official says
- Sabrine has been a longtime central bank official mostly focused on oversight of the country’s banking sector
DAMASCUS: Syria’s new rulers have appointed Maysaa Sabrine, formerly a deputy governor of the Syrian central bank, to lead the institution as the first woman to do so in its more than 70-year history, a senior Syrian official said.
Sabrine, a longtime central bank official mostly focused on oversight of the country’s banking sector, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
She replaces Mohammed Issam Hazime who was appointed governor in 2021 by then-President Bashar Assad and remained on after Assad was ousted by a lightning militant offensive on Dec. 8.
Since the takeover, the bank has taken steps to liberalize an economy that was heavily controlled by the state, including by canceling the need for pre-approvals for imports and exports and tight controls on the use of foreign currency.
But Syria and the bank itself remain under strict US sanctions.
The bank has also taken stock of the country’s assets after Assad’s fall and a brief spate of looting that saw Syrian currency stolen but the main vaults left unbreached, Reuters reported.
The vault holds nearly 26 tons of gold, the same amount it had at the start of its civil war in 2011, sources told Reuters, but foreign currency reserves had dwindled from around $18 billion before the war to around $200 million, they said.
Lebanon receives thousands of expatriates amid Israeli aggression
- Country faces realities while getting ready to welcome the new year
BEIRUT: Fadi Al-Hassan, director-general of Lebanon’s civil aviation authority, said on Monday that “Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport welcomed 11,700 visitors in one day,” and that “the total number of arrivals to date in December has reached about 220,000.”
Al-Hassan described the figures as “an important achievement compared with the previous years.”
Lebanon is trying to recover from an expanded, destructive Israeli war that started last October against Hezbollah and ended about a month ago under a conditional agreement that provides for the Lebanese army’s deployment in southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the Israeli forces, which must completely withdraw from the areas they invaded in the south within a period of 60 days pursuant to the agreement, continue to detonate and bulldoze houses, evacuating only a few areas.
The Israeli army carried out a huge demolition operation in Taybeh, Marjayoun, after bulldozing houses in Taybeh, Mays Al-Jabal, Khiam, Kfarkila and Chamaa.
Most of the arrivals in Lebanon are expatriates who came to spend the holidays with their families, as well as Syrians using Beirut’s airport to return to Syria.
Lebanon is preparing to welcome the new year, while living two separate realities.
In Beirut’s southern suburbs, littered with the rubble of flattened buildings, dozens of “for sale” signs are displayed on the balconies of several buildings that survived the war.
Nisrine, who came back from Germany to check on her mother in Burj Al-Barajneh, told Arab News: “What we saw on the screen is different than reality. The destruction here is scary. The suburb is gloomy and no longer looks like itself.
“Nights are horrific,” she added. “People are tired and worried, the cost of rebuilding what was destroyed is huge, and non-Hezbollah partisans complain of the absence of financial aid to help fix the broken windows at least.”
On the other hand, the areas not affected by war face increased road traffic, with holiday decorations taking over the streets, restaurants and shops.
Therese, who runs a pub with her children in Badaro, hoped “that the situation would get better in the coming new year, and that the 2024 war would be the country’s last.”
She said that “the whole country was affected by what happened in the southern suburbs, the south, and Bekaa. People want to go on with their lives, and we try to be a beacon of hope for them to reduce the weight of the days they went through.”
Security agencies are taking precautions, covering all expected tourist spots in Lebanon.
Minister of Interior Bassam Malawi, and the director-general of the internal security forces, Maj. Gen. Imad Othman, will personally supervise the launch of security patrols, with the event to be broadcast live on TV channels.
Civil aviation’s Al-Hassan said that “Emirati, French, and German airlines, as well as other companies that have suspended flights to Lebanon during the war, could possibly resume their flight schedule to Lebanon in the next 10 days,” adding that “other companies have already resumed their activity with a limited number of flights to Lebanon.”
He expected “the organization of flights to be further improved next month.”
In other news, a parliamentary session is expected to take place on Jan. 9 to elect a president — a position that has been vacant for 26 months due to political disputes between Hezbollah and its allies on one hand, and its opponents on the other, as to the president’s identity.
With nine days remaining until the session, the identity of the candidate with the highest chances of winning is still unknown. It is also unclear whether the quorum will be met, or whether any political party would be willing to compromise.
Despite Hezbollah’s struggle with the rubble removal, compensation and reconstruction file, the party considered, according to its head of Arab and International Relations, Ammar Moussawi, that “some fools and idiots think that the resistance was defeated and written off.”
He added: “We tell them that as long as our hearts are beating, the resistance will remain. Dreaming of a Lebanon without the resistance is wishful thinking.”
Hezbollah parliament MP Hassan Fadlallah said that “the resistance’s firmness, and the political effort led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, in full coordination with Hezbollah’s leadership, are what led to the ceasefire agreement, which in turn forced the enemy to withdraw within a 60-day period from the border area.”
He added that “the agreement didn’t allow the enemy to carry out any violations and hostilities on Lebanese territory and in the southern area and border villages.”
Fadlallah believed that “besides the internal political divisions and conflicts, confronting the Israeli hostilities against our country should be part of a responsible national stance, where every party assumes its responsibilities, be it the state, the official authorities or the political forces.”
He continued: “This cause must concern all the Lebanese. The south is part of our country, and everyone should be involved in defending and protecting the country’s sovereignty. This requires a national stance.”
He emphasized that “the only way to confront this enemy is through the resistance’s weapons and the people-army-resistance equation.”
On the Israeli side, Israel’s Minister of Defense Israel Katz said that “every dollar denied to Hezbollah is a step closer toward weakening this organization. We will block Hezbollah’s attempts to recover.”
Katz said: “The long arm of Israel will act in every way to ensure the safety of our citizens, and we are working on all fronts to dry up Hezbollah’s sources of funding as it attempts to rebuild its capabilities.”
Palestinian Authority says five more Gazans die in Israeli detention
RAMALLAH: The Palestinian Authority’s ministry for detainees and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club announced on Monday that they had received reports of the deaths of five Gazans in Israeli detention.
Amani Sarahna, a spokesperson for the Prisoners’ Club, confirmed to AFP that two of the five died on Sunday, while the remaining three died earlier.
The club said the five prisoners were arrested during the Israel-Hamas war, some of them while fleeing from the north of the Gaza Strip southwards.
According to the two organizations, 54 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli prisons since the start of the war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Thirty-five of the dead have been from the Gaza Strip, with the rest from the occupied West Bank.
The detainees ministry is an arm of the Palestinian Authority responsible for the welfare of Palestinians in Israeli jails and their families.
The two organizations named four of the dead prisoners as Mohammad Rashid Okka, 44, Samir Mahmoud Al-Kahlout, 52, Zuhair Omar Al-Sharif, 58, and Mohammad Anwar Labad, 57.
An additional prisoner, Ashraf Mohammad Abu Warda, 51, died in Israel’s Soroka Hospital on Sunday, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said.
They did not provide details of how the prisoners died.
In a joint statement, the two organizations accused Israel of “liquidation operations against prisoners and detainees.”
They said the number of prisoners killed in Israeli jails was at a historic high, calling it “the most bloody phase.” According to the statement, 291 Palestinian prisoners have died in custody since 1967, when Israel began occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Currently, more than 10,000 Palestinians are being held in Israeli jails, including 89 women, at least 345 children and 3,428 administrative detainees who are held without trial.
The Israel Prisons Service did not immediately respond to an AFP request for confirmation of the deaths.
