“We are trying to bring democracy to its feet.”

CHP Istanbul MP Barış Yarkadaş said, “Those who are paying a price to enable the people to exercise the right to be obtain news will for sure attain success.”
 
The crowd assembling before the Çağlayan Judicial Complex for the Cumhuriyet and Özgür Gündem newspaper staffers’ hearings were calling for the release of the detained journalists.
 
Also in attendance at the meeting organised by the group named the Journalists on the Outside, alongside CHP MPs Barış Yarkadaş, Gürsel Tekin, Ali Şeker, Muharrem Erkek and Sezgin Tanrıkulu, were Kadıköy Mayor Aykurt Nuhoğlu and Kadıköy Sub-Province Chair Ali Narin.
 
CHP Beyoğlu Sub-Province Chair Bekir Özcan also gave support to the group. Socialist International Vice President Umut Oran also came to Çağlayan for the hearing.
 
Barış Yarkadaş, addressing the crowd prior to the hearing, said, “The AKP has put democracy into intensive care. We are struggling to bring democracy to its feet.”
 
Yarkadaş spoke as follows:
 
“Welcome to our ordinary Tuesday meeting. Why do I say, ‘ordinary Tuesday meeting?’ Because every Tuesday we gather in front of a building having justice in its name but having no justice inside for journalists, our colleagues, intellectuals and writers, and, unfortunately, the AKP regime seemingly does not change our fate. There are currently a full 182 journalists behind iron bars in jails and they are paying a heavy price for what they have written, drawn and said, for the tweets they have posted and comments they have made.”
 
The CHP parliamentarian summarised the duress experienced by the journalists and the course of their trials as follows:
 
“Today sees the trial of both Cumhuriyet and Özgür Gündem newspaper staffers. The Özgür Gündem staffers have been in detention for a period in excess of 400 days. As to the Cumhuriyet staffers, they have been deprived of their liberty for a full 365 days, that is four seasons. October passed in full anguish and torture for journalists. In October, twelve journalists were arrested and four of them were detained. This was not enough and they launched an investigation into eleven journalists. Many of our journalist colleagues’ homes were raided and their books were confiscated.”
 
Yarkadaş, stating that the regime had put democracy into intensive care, continued as follows:
 
“With the AKP regime having journalists detained and threatening intellectuals and having investigations launched into their writing and artwork, it is bringing democracy to its death throes. Thanks to the AKP, democracy is currently like a patient who has been admitted to intensive care. We are trying with our struggle for freedom, our struggle for the freedom of expression, to bring this patient currently placed in intensive care back onto its feet, back to life and make it prevail on this soil
 
Rest assured that those who are paying a price for the freedom to express ideas and to enable the people to exercise the right to be obtain news – those who have spent 365 days, 400 days, 450 days in jail - will crown this fight for freedom with success and the people will in the end for sure freely exercise the right to obtain news on this soil.”