News / Turkey

Turkey targets whistle-blowing journalists

Thursday, 26 November 2015 5:08 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 26 November 2015 5:08 PM ]

A still image grabbed from a video published on the website of the Turkish Cumhuriyet daily on May 29, 2015 shows mortar shells in boxes intercepted on a truck destined for Syria.

A prosecutor in Turkey has demanded that two journalists who revealed that Turkey's state intelligence agency had helped deliver arms to Takfiri militant groups in neighboring Syria be imprisoned.

Can Dündar, editor-in-chief of center-left Turkish daily newspaper Cumhuriyet along with the paper's Ankara representative Erdem Gül appeared in court in the Turkish port city of Istanbul on Thursday to face charges of "espionage and treason."

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken legal action in person against Dündar, requesting life sentence for him.

The pair face life sentence and an additional 42-year term in prison on counts of charges ranging from espionage to subversion and disclosure of secret information.

Dündar told reporters outside the courthouse before his testimony that the state is understandably in panic over the revelations.

“There is a crime that has been committed by the state that they are trying to cover up,” Dündar said, adding, “We came here to defend journalism. We came here to defend the right of the public to obtain the news and their right to know if their government is feeding them lies. We came here to show and to prove that governments cannot engage in illegal activity and to defend this.”

“We are being charged with being spies, the president is saying that we are traitors to the state. We are not spies, we are not traitors, we are not heroes; we are journalists.”

The released footage, which daily Cumhuriyet posted on its website in late May, purportedly showed that trucks belonging to Turkey’s the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) carrying weapons to the Takfiri terror groups operating in neighboring Syria. The Cumhuriyet video also shows trucks of the MIT being inspected by security officers.

The daily said the trucks were carrying around 1,000 mortar shells, hundreds of grenade launchers and more than 80,000 rounds of ammunition for light and heavy weapons.

The file photo shows militants in an unknown location in Syria.

The interception of Syria-bound weapons consignments took place in January 2014 in Turkey, when a convoy of MIT trucks loaded with arms and ammunition was stopped and searched near the Syrian border in the southern provinces of Hatay and Adana.

Several security officials who stopped the trucks are currently being tried for “spying” charges.

The incident triggered a huge controversy in Turkey with many bashing the government for explicitly supporting terrorism in neighboring Syria.

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