The newly elected board of the Cumhuriyet foundation, the owner of Turkey’s opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper, sacked editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu on Saturday and pulled from the online edition Sabuncu’s farewell article to readers.
The new board includes controversial names such as Alev Coşkun, who was alleged to have sent anonymous denunciations to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan which were used as evidence in the Cumhuriyet trials, according to a report by online news outlet Ahval.
Fifteen staff members of the newspaper, including Sabuncu, were given long prison sentences in April 2018 in the Cumhuriyet trials, during which the prosecutors claimed the newspaper aided the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Gülen movement.
“The Cumhuriyet trial is part a systematic effort to silence independent media and critical voices in Turkey to prevent public scrutiny of the government,” Hugh Williamson, Europe, and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, had said following the court’s verdict.
“It is time to leave now. History will tell the reasons why. Nobody will hear even a single word against Cumhuriyet coming from my mouth,” wrote Sabuncu, who spent 17 months of his 25 months as the editor-in-chief of the newspaper in prison.
“I am not writing this to tell you the dirt dished on us during Cumhuriyet trials or those who played a leading role or served as extras,” Sabuncu said, in his first and last Cumhuriyet editorial.
During his term as editor-in-chief, the newspaper tried to be objective and to abide universal rules, Sabuncu said, becoming a platform to all those oppressed in Turkey without any discrimination.
“Murat Sabuncu bid farewell to Cumhuriyet, after the change in executive board, by preserving his usual elegance,” journalist Banu Güven said on Twitter, calling Sabuncu a democrat and principled person.
Another journalist, Yavuz Oğhan, said that appointing Alev Çoskun, who had testified against the newspaper’s staff during trials, as the head of the new board was enough to expose the ”vileness” of the latest developments.
However, the administrative change in Cumhuriyet was welcomed by those who have been criticising the newspaper for following a liberal policy, rather than sticking tightly to the values of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic.
“Cumhuriyet afresh… Now we have another reason to wake up with hope every morning,” Metin Feyzioğlu, the head of the Turkish Bar Association, said.
“Atatürk’s enlightenment revolutions form the basis of the newspaper’s editorial policy. As of today, the newspapers return to its editorial policy the loyal readers have been wishing for,” the new Cumhuriyet board said in its statement.
The new board also sacked the newspapers managing editor, Faruk Eren, and editor Bülent Özdoğan. Columnist Aslı Aydıntaşbaş announced on Twitter that she decided to part ways with Cumhuriyet after the takeover, a move that is likely to be followed by many other Cumhuriyet contributors.
Turkey is ranked 157th among 180 countries in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). If Turkey falls two more places, it will make it to the list of countries on the blacklist, which have the poorest record in press freedom.
Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by SCF show that 237 journalists and media workers were in jail as of September 6, 2018, most in pretrial detention. Of those in prison 169 were under arrest pending trial while only 68 journalists have been convicted and are serving their time. Detention warrants are outstanding for 147 journalists who are living in exile or remain at large in Turkey.
Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down some 200 media outlets, including Kurdish news agencies and newspapers, after a coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016.
The post Turkish daily’s Erdoğan-friendly new board sacks editor-in-chief, reverses editorial policy appeared first on Stockholm Center for Freedom.
from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/turkish-dailys-erdogan-friendly-new-board-sacks-editor-in-chief-reverses-editorial-policy/
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