Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals (Yargıtay) has overturned the prison sentences handed down to seven former Cumhuriyet employees and ordered the release of five of them who have been serving time, the Diken news website reported on Thursday.
Former Cumhuriyet employees Musa Kart, Güray Öz, Mustafa Kemal Güngör, Hakan Kara and Önder Çelik are expected to be released tonight at 9 p.m. local time, a reporter tweeted.
Two of the seven – Kadri Gürsel and Bülent Utku – were not behind bars as Gürsel was were released on probation in May and Utku had not turned himself in to authorities to serve his sentence as the other six had.
The court ruled to uphold the sentence of Emre İper, who will remain behind bars.
The Cumhuriyet trial involved a total of 18 defendants, journalists and media staff who faced terrorism-related charges due to the paper’s publications, some of whom started to serve prison sentences on April 25 of this year.
A press freedom report by the Council of Europe recently qualified Turkey as the world’s largest jailer of journalists.
The country was also ranked 157th out of 180 countries in the 2019 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders.
The post Turkey’s top appeals court overturns sentences of 7 Cumhuriyet journalists appeared first on Turkish Minute.
from Turkish Minute https://www.turkishminute.com/2019/09/12/turkeys-top-appeals-court-overturns-sentences-of-7-cumhuriyet-journalists/
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