“I will say that I am ashamed and in agony for my country because of these irrational accusations,” he said. As of March this year, 173 media outlets had been shut down, including newspapers, magazines, radio stations, websites and news agencies. After media outlets that once belonged to the Gülen movement were seized, the government-appointed trustee boards that have transformed those newspapers and TV stations into a loyalist press. On Monday, a week of hearings is expected to begin in the Cumhuriyet case against 17 of the newspaper’s journalists and executives. “This trial offers the government another opportunity to change course in its campaign against Turkey’s independent media,” said Tobias Garnett, a human rights lawyer with P24, an organisation that advocates for press freedom and supports Turkish journalists on trial.

Source: The Guardian July 24, 2017 03:00 UTC