Murat Sabuncu: Nothing has changed in 65 years

Our newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief Murat Sabuncu said, “It has been ten and a half months. I became Editor-in-Chief in September 2016. I was detained after having spent two months in my office. I have spent ten months of my twelve-month term as editor-in-chief in prison. I, as a person whose did his postgraduate education on the media, will give brief examples from the history of the media.”

Sabuncu commented as follows: “In 1952, the magazine 41.5 appeared. It was the staunch opposition humorous magazine of the time. The magazine’s editor-in-chief was İlhan Selçuk. and its cartoonist Turhan Selçuk. Legal action is brought over one of this magazine’s covers. An expert is appointed. The expert was a professor specialising in diwan poetry.

Since then, 65 years have passed. The expert in the Cumhuriyet trial, Ünal Aldemir, is a computer engineering expert who graduated from Gebze Higher Institute of Technology. He is a person who has never engaged in journalism. He has selected 20-25 of our 1400 headlines of the past four years and has connected us to as many terrorist organisations as there are in the country.

In a similar fashion, İlhan Selçuk was prosecuted in the 1980 period for writing, ‘Is Kemalism’s ideology a banana?’ Similar accusations were also made at that time. Evren subsequently said, “Let Cumhuriyet take care” on encountering Nadir Nadi. The Cumhuriyet Foundation deeds lie on my desk. There are two basic components of the deed. To abide by the values of the Republic and defend Ataturkism. Nadir Nadi wrote his famous book, ‘I am not an Ataturkist’ in 1984. He said in the book, ‘If Ataturkism is turning one’s back on contemporary values, I am not an Ataturkist.’

It has passed into the dark side of Turkey’s history

We are journalists. You are prosecuting us for the reports we have made. The prosecutor who opened these proceedings against and detained us and who lead the investigation until the indictment was drafted made reports that he gathered from newspapers and media sites close to the ruling party into the main plank in the indictment. This trial has passed into the dark side of Turkey’s history. This trial will not end. It will be taught at Turkey’s legal faculties for many years. Those who drafted this indictment will feel great shame. We have been incarcerated for ten and a half months and, even if we are incarcerated longer, we will defend the freedom of expression and the press. We will do this for all journalists in Turkey.”