Can Dündar, the editor of one of Turkey’s leading opposition newspapers, has announced that he is stepping down, saying he no longer has faith in the judiciary to hear an appeal in a secrecy trial after the failed coup. In May, a Turkish court sentenced Dündar, the editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet, to five years and 10 months in prison for allegedly revealing state secrets in a story that infuriated the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The journalist was allowed to go free pending an appeal and is now believed to be in Germany. Dündar said all the signs indicated that a period of “lawlessness” was under way and the state of emergency was being used by the government as a pretext to arbitrarily control the judiciary. Dündar, together with his Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gül, spent three months in pre-trial detention before being freed in February under a constitutional court ruling.

Source: The Guardian August 15, 2016 09:51 UTC