Turkey’s latest trial of journalists is surreal even by its own standards
Ahmet Sik and 16 others are accused of aiding the subversive movement they helped to expose
THRONGS of relatives and lawyers pushed their way past a metal barrier manned by security guards, fighting for a spot in the crowded courtroom. The area where the accused sat was crowded, too. The 17 journalists whose trial began on July 24th were the core of the editorial staff of Cumhuriyet, Turkey’s oldest newspaper and one of the few media outlets that has refused to play by the rules of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s autocratic president. In a case widely considered a perversion of justice even by Turkish standards, they face prison terms of up to 43 years for “assisting an armed terrorist organisation”.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Absurdity in power”
From the July 29th 2017 edition
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