International News

ISTANBUL, (MILLAT+APP/AFP) – Turkey detained on Friday
the head of the board of opposition daily Cumhuriyet, said the newspaper, which has been the target of an intensifying crackdown since July’s failed coup.
Akin Atalay was taken into custody at Istanbul’s airport after arriving
from Germany, said Cumhuriyet, which also saw nine of its staff arrested last
week.
The paper has in recent years taken a strong line against President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Atalay was targeted by a warrant that was part of a probe into “terrorist
activities”, and was ushered into a police vehicle that was waiting for him on
the tarmac.
Some 35,000 people have been arrested and tens of thousands more have lost
their jobs — including military officers, judges, teachers, civil servants and
journalists — in a sweeping crackdown in the wake of the failed July bid to
oust Erdogan.
The news comes as nine MPs from the opposition pro-Kurdish People’s
Democratic Party (HDP), including its co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen
Yuksekdag, were detained last week pending a trial on terror charges expected
to begin Friday.
Nine of the paper’s staff, including its current editor-in-chief, were
remanded in custody last weekend pending trial after raids that have added to
growing international alarm about media freedoms in Turkey.
The paper’s exiled former editor-in-chief, Can Dundar, fled to Germany
earlier this year while appealing against a near six-year jail term for
revealing state secrets.
Among the nine to be held ahead of trial were Cumhuriyet’s editor-in-chief
Murat Sabuncu, celebrated cartoonist Musa Kart and influential anti-Erdogan
columnist Kadri Gursel.
However, columnists Hikmet Cetinkaya and Aydin Engin were released on bail
on health grounds and because of their age. Two other suspects from the
newspaper’s accounting department were released without charge.
The suspects are charged with links to the Kurdish militant Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) and the movement of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen,
blamed for the failed coup bid. Gulen denies the accusations.
Dundar was sentenced by a Turkish court in May to five years and 10 months
in prison for a story about a shipment of arms intercepted at the Syrian
border, which had prompted a furious Erdogan to warn Dundar he would “pay a
heavy price”.
Amid mounting fears for Turkish press freedom, on Tuesday the Turkey
representative for Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and two other campaigners
went on trial charged with making terror propaganda for Kurdish militants.