Ahmet Sik attacks Erdogan’s ‘dirty crime dynasty’
An opposition journalist standing trial on terrorism charges in Turkey has delivered a searing attack on President Erdogan and his government. On the third day of the hearing against 12 journalists and five board members at Cumhuriyet, the left-leaning, secularist newspaper, Ahmet Sik said:
“Those who think that this dirty system, this crime dynasty, will last for ever are wrong. Like all the dictatorships that darken the pages of history, those who toil to progress with the insatiable hunger of their hates and ambitions, always prepare their own ends. I was a journalist yesterday. I am a journalist today. I will continue practising journalism tomorrow. That means the irreconcilable contradiction between us and those who want to strangle the truth will never end.”
The investigative reporter was jailed for a year in 2011 for his exposé of the Gulenists, followers of Fethullah Gulen, a charismatic Islamic cleric who worked their way into influential state positions. At that time Mr Erdogan was prime minister and in a loose alliance with the Gulenists. The relationship crumbled in 2013 and he declared war on his old allies. He blamed the academic for last year’s attempted coup. Since then, the government has closed businesses and schools linked to the Gulenists and purged the police and judiciary. More than 150,000 people have been arrested or fired from the bureaucracy, security services and academia. The media has also been cauterised: 177 journalists are in jail and 149 media outlets have been closed down.
Mr Sik and his colleagues are accused of helping the Gulenists and the banned Kurdish PKK militia. The verdict will be decided solely by the judge. The prosecutor who brought the case against the newspaper was himself later charged with aiding the Gulenists.