Application for release of the Cumhuriyet staffers

Following the passing by the Constitutional Court (CC) of a ruling declaring that our Book Supplement Manager Turhan Günay’s constitutional rights had been violated through his detention in the Cumhuriyet trial, an application has been made for the release of our editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu, executive board chair Akın Atalay and reporter Ahmet Şık, who are in detention as part of the same trial.

In the pleadings dated yesterday that our newspaper’s lawyers submitted to Istanbul Serious Crime Court No 27, which is hearing the trial, they recalled that separate individual applications had been made to the CC on behalf of our columnists and managers. It was recounted in the pleadings that the CC had issued a ruling the day before yesterday over applications of a similar nature by our Book Supplement Manager Turhan Günay along with journalists Mehmet Altan and Şahin Alpay. It was stated that in the ruling regarding Günay his detention had been declared unlawful and his right to liberty and security of person deemed to have been violated.

Likelihood of a similar ruling

With it stressed in the pleadings that the currently detained Sabuncu, Atalay and Şık’s individual applications were similar in scope to that of Turhan Günay, regarding whom the CC issued a violation ruling over his detention, it was concluded, “The detention orders are the same, the indictment is the same and the charges and submissions by way of evidence to the file are the same.”

With it stressed in the pleadings that the ruling issued by the CC set a precedent, it was said, “Just as it was a ruling that set a precedent for the other defendants in the same trial, it was also a ruling that conformed with the law. As such, we are of the opinion that all legal discrepancies and inequalities between equals need to be eliminated.” The following pronouncement was made in the pleadings, in which it was recalled that other writers and managers who had pending individual applications were in detention on the same grounds: “It is a requirement of the law that they be restored to freedom at once and the detention that has lasted for such a considerable time despite essentially having been unlawful from the outset be ended. Our request is that your esteemed court, taking into consideration that freedom is the normal state and detention is a most exceptional measure, immediately pass a release order for the detained defendants.”