By: Daniel McElroy
Cumhuriyet cartoonist Musa Kart, center, and colleagues stand outside an Istanbul courthouse in March 2018. (AFP/Ozan Lose)
The long trial of Musa Kart, a Turkish journalist well known for the biting humor of his political cartoons in Turkey’s left-leaning Cumhuriyet newspaper, concluded on Wednesday with the conviction of Kart and twelve other employees of the publication. All 13 men—comprising journalists, artists, managers, and lawyers—were found guilty of aiding terrorist organizations and were sentenced to between three and seven years in prison.
The trouble for Cumhuriyet began in 2016, after the Turkish government began cracking down on media outlets throughout the country, jailing journalists, academics, and artists arbitrarily as a result of a failed coup attempt earlier that summer. Twelve of the thirteen convicted were taken into custody on October 31, 2016 during a surprise police raid on their homes. Kart and the others spent nine months in pretrial detention before an indictment was produced and they were able to walk free.
Prosecutors claimed that the Cumhuriyet employees had aided several organization classified as “terrorist groups” by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarian regime: these include the Gulenists (followers of an exiled cleric upon whom the Turkish government blames the failed coup), the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, and a far-left political party known as the DHKP-C.
All thirteen of the accused vehemently denied any involvement with such groups and many, including Kart, countered that the Erdoğan regime sought to silence some of its harshest critics with their trial—many even produced their own writing or drawings as evidence of criticizing the same groups they were alleged to have helped. They also cited the long time between their arrest and indictment as proof that the government had wanted to keep them embroiled in the courts for as long as possible.
Though prosecutors sought up to 43 years in prison for the Cumhuriyet employees, those convicted were sentenced to between four and seven years. Musa Kart will spend three years, nine months in prison.
Kart and the others are expected to appeal, though they have been placed on probation and been banned from international travel until that process has been completed. After hearing the conviction, Kart remained optimistic. “With this trial, months have been stolen from our lives, but they cannot steal our hopes for a better future for our country,” he said.