You will stand in shame before history

Turhan Günay, Kadri Gürsel, Önder Çelik, Musa Kart, Murat Sabuncu, Güray Öz, Bülent Utku, M. Kemal Güngör, Hakan Kara

The interrogation has ended of our paper’s managers and reporters who have been detained at Istanbul Police Headquarters in Vatan Street since 31 October on the allegation of “having committed crimes on behalf of the PKK/KCK and FETÖ/PDY terror organisations”. Once their statements were complete, our managers and reporters were sent to the Çağlayan judicial complex. Subsequently, nine of our reporters and managers were remanded in custody, including our General Publishing Manager Murat Sabuncu.

It has emerged that the aim of the operations and arrests directed at our reporters and mangers is to silence our paper, whose birth coincided with that of the Republic. Our newspaper’s General Publishing Manager Murat Sabuncu was remanded in custody this morning, along with Publishing Consultant Kadri Gürsel, Cumhuriyet Foundation Management Board members Önder Çelik, Bülent Utku, Mustafa Kemal Güngör, Güray Öz, Hakan Kara and Musa Kart, and Book Supplement General Publishing Manager Turhan Günay. Our accounting manager Günseli Özaltay and former manager Bülent Yener were released last night.

The interrogation by the judge at Çağlayan judicial complex of our paper’s General Publishing Manager Murat Sabuncu has ended. An intermission was held in the interrogations. After the intermission, the interrogations of Murat Sabuncu, Kadri Gürsel, Musa Kart, Güray Öz, Mustafa Kemal Güngör, Turhan Günay, Bülent Utku, Hakan Kara and Önder Çelik were conducted jointly. The mass interrogation ended at 08.00 hours and a second intermission was held. The decision was made known at 10.22.

Günseli Özaltay and Bülent Yener were released at around 21.00 following interrogation by the prosecution. At this same time, the prosecution sent Güray Öz, Musa Kart, Turhan Günay, Hakan Kara, Kadri Gürsel, Önder Çelik, Bülent Utku and Mustafa Kemal Güngör to the judicial complex with the application that they be remanded in custody. At around 01.50, Hikmet Çetinkaya and Aydın Engin were released subject to pre-trial conditions. It also applied for Murat Sabuncu to be remanded. In total, the prosecution applied for the remand of a total of nine of our reporters and managers. Those of our reporters and managers who were sent before the judge were remanded.

Aydın Engin: Ben bu kadar ahlaksız dosya görmedim Aydın Engin: I have never seen a file that flies in the face of morality to this degree

Cumhuriyet newspaper’s general publishing manager Aydın Engin appeared in front of our paper’s premises in Şişli and issued a statement. Engin passed on a message from Murat Sabuncu: “We bow down in honour before our people and readers. We bow before nobody else.”



THREE MORE PROSECUTORS APPOINTED

The prosecutors started to take statements at about 11.00 yesterday at the Counter-Terrorism Branch Directorate in Vatan Street. As the file is subject to a confidentiality order, not even our paper’s lawyers were able to examine the file. However, our managers and reporters were questioned individually about the allegations appearing in the report into the investigation by Anatolian Agency. Media outlets close to the government have for some time been targeting Cumhuriyet and our reporters. Allegations contained in reports by media close to the government were also put before our reporters at the investigation by the prosecutor.

Our managers and reporters, who were detained for four days at Istanbul Police Headquarters on Vatan Street, were asked about reports and articles that appeared in our newspaper.

Yazar ve yöneticilerimizin tutuklanmasına tepki yağıyor... 'Darbe yargısı kararını verdi' Outrage at the remanding of our reporters and managers ... ‘The coup-compliant judiciary has issued its decision’

Those reports and reporters are as follow

The reports and articles about which the prosecutors inquired were: “The articles into the security services’ ammunition-loaded trucks, ISIL’s attacks in France and at Sultanahmet, the PKK’s attacks on the general barracks in February 2016, the taking hostage of prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz who was killed in his office at Istanbul judicial complex, the interview with KCK Executive Council Co-Chair Cemil Bayık, interviews with the proprietor of a survey company into the fall in the AKP’s electoral support in the aftermath of the Ankara slaughter, the interview conducted with Celal Kara, one of the prosecutors in the 17 December investigation, and those with the headlines ‘War at Home, Peace in the World’ of 25 July, ‘The Danger in the Streets’ of 17 July, ‘The Witch-Hunt has Begun’ of 19 July, ‘The Shortfall is in Democracy’ of 8 August, ‘Turkey in Chaos’ of 16 July, ‘Purge Expected – there will be a Parallel Agenda at the Supreme Military Council’ of 12 July, and the articles in Aydın Engin’s column with the headlines ‘Peace in the world – so what about at home?’ and ‘The Gülen Organisation also killed Hrant, did it?’ of 9 August, Can Dündar’s articles entitled ‘You will leave politics the same way you entered it’ of 3 December 2013 and ‘The pawns have been taken: it’s the kings’ turn’ of 24 December 2013 and Kadri Gürsel’s article entitled ‘Erdoğan wants to be our father’ of 12 July.

Balbay’s tweet was also inquired about

Included among the questions posed was a Twitter post by our paper’s former columnist, CHP member of parliament Mustafa Balbay. Balbay tweeted in February 2016: “In Cumhuriyet, everything from FETÖism to Kurdism is permitted, but writing articles as a CHP MP is forbidden.’