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Tragedy of Turkey’s Cumhuriyet Daily: A Kemalist Civil War?
As six former Cumhuriyet staff members go back to prison, the new administration’s role in their imprisonment once again warrants scrutiny.
On Thursday, six former workers of the Cumhuriyet newspaper went back to prison in western Turkey to complete the rest of their jail term after a regional appeals court upheld their prison sentences delivered by a local court last year.
This came as a new, demoralizing blow to press members in a country where the media landscape has already been battered by the post-coup crackdown and purge.
Yet, it took hours for the Cumhuriyet daily to publish a story about its former staff members going back to prison. What prompted the Cumhuriyet daily was a tweet from Nadire Kalkan Gursel, the wife of former Cumhuriyet columnist Kadri Gursel, who held the new administration responsible for what was happening.
“Look at this. @cumhuriyetgzt cannot report this. It is because of you, Sir. Shame on you! Can you comfortably sit in that newspaper? It is Mustafa Balbay who started this process,” Gursel wrote on Twitter.
