Kadri Gürsel walks free: No cause for joy with Cumhuriyet staffers unjustly detained

Our Publishing Consultant Kadri Gürsel, who had been in detention for 330 days following the operation to silence Cumhuriyet, has walked to freedom, his release ordered at the third hearing of the Cumhuriyet trial. Gürsel was met by a crowd made up of his family, acquaintances and colleagues along with parliamentarians in front of the jail.
Kadri Gürsel said the following on being released:
“In the first place, I greatly thank all my friends and colleagues, the Cumhuriyet staff, the journalists on the outside, the Justice Watch initiative by lawyers, the Cumhuriyet Platform and all international and national press organisations for the support they gave us for the duration of this trial and our detention. They showed us once again how important solidarity is.
 
Cumhuriyet employees deprived of their freedom
 
I am conveying this to you not just on my own behalf, but also on behalf of my four friends I have left behind. There is no occasion for too much celebration or joy, because we are talking about Cumhuriyet staff being detained on unjust and unfounded charges. And these colleagues of ours have been deprived of their liberty. Were I to speak on my own behalf, I was detained because I am journalist and Cumhuriyet employee Kadri Gürsel. I now once more stand before you as Kadri Gürsel. Whatever those of my colleagues who were released before me were prior to their detention, they left from here as those people. That is how our other colleagues will leave this prison. While those colleagues of ours, as we saw in court, made nonsense of the unfounded, unlawful charges raised against them, they found this fortitude within themselves and will do so.
 
Today’s hearing was truly bizarre
 
Each session of the Cumhuriyet trial has been of a historic nature. The historic nature lay both in the defences put forward and the way they showed just how vacuous the prosecution’s allegations were, and at the same time in the display of a courageous defence of journalism to this degree. There were truly bizarre aspects of today’s session. As to the situation surrounding the people who were brought before us to testify against us, in a single word, I describe the situation as being bizarre.
 
A situation that casts a shadow over the independence of the judiciary
 
Judicial decisions are leaked to various newspapers and websites before being announced by the judiciary. This, in my opinion, is a situation that casts a shadow over the independence of the judiciary. A stop must be put to this. A member of the media will report on a development having news value that appears in front of them; but, here, the party that is essentially abusing their duty is the one who leaks this news. Prior to the issuing of the judicial decision, news that “The continuation has been ordered of six defendants’ detention” was doing the rounds. This was also shown to the presiding judge. And the presiding judge said that he would file a crime report over this.
 
I will continue to write
 
Every journalist wants to continue writing. I will of course continue writing, but I will push myself to the limit, because a journalist must push themselves to the limit to remain a journalist.”