Turkish court upholds verdict against former Cumhuriyet employees

A Turkish court has confirmed convictions against a dozen former journalists from Turkey's main opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper, despite their sentences being overturned by a higher court.

According to Press TV, Sezgin Tanrikulu, a lawmaker from the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), and rights officials on Thursday confirmed that the court in Istanbul had upheld its conviction of 12 former employees of the country’s oldest newspaper.

Emma Sinclair-Webb of Human Rights Watch outside the court in Istanbul told media outlets that the Thursday ruling posed a threat to press freedom in the country.

"Once again a Turkish court has defied the decision of the higher court. Once again, journalism is the victim in this case," she said.

"The same very weak, bogus evidence has been used once again... It is a scandalous decision and another decision that will go down in history as evidence of Turkey's broken criminal justice system," she added.

Last year, the journalists were convicted of supporting three organizations that Turkey views as terrorist: the PKK, the ultra-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, and the Gulen movement, blamed by the Turkish government for the 2016 failed coup. 

They were sentenced to jail terms ranging from two-and-a-half years to more than eight years.

In September, the Supreme Court overturned the sentences and freed the former journalists pending Thursday's retrial.

But the lower court ignored that decision, and reconfirmed the original sentences, with the exception of one journalist -- Kadri Gursel -- who was acquitted.

In May, the Constitutional Court ruled that the case had violated the rights to freedom, free expression and personal security of two of the journalists: Gursel and Murat Aksoy.

Commenting on the developments, Cumhuriyet's former lawyer Bulent Utku said the case was "political from the beginning, and aimed at revenge."

ME