A Turkish court handed down lengthy prison terms to six journalists for involvement in a military coup, sparking an outcry from rights activists who say the country is becoming more authoritarian as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan bolsters his powers.
The sentences, of eight years and more, were given on Friday to journalists who had worked at Zaman, once Turkey’s best-selling newspaper, which had broadly backed Mr Erdogan before becoming increasingly critical.
Zaman was for years run by followers of Fethullah Gulen, a cleric who lives in Pennsylvania and whom Mr Erdogan says masterminded an attempted coup against him in July 2016. The paper had been seized by the state several months before. Mr Gulen denies all involvement in the coup.
Rights activists said the prosecutor had failed to present evidence backing up the court’s verdict that the journalists belonged to a terrorist group — although they welcomed its acquittal of five other journalists.
The court also threw out the most serious charge against the defendants: attempting to topple Turkey’s constitutional order, which carries a life sentence in solitary confinement.
“It was surreal. The defendants were charged on the basis of what they had written, and there was no serious attempt to show that any of them had even intended to contribute to the coup,” said Katie Morris of Article 19, a British rights group, who was in Istanbul to observe the trial. She added that the verdicts were “deeply concerning in terms of freedom of expression and the right to a free trial for the wider journalistic community in Turkey.”
