A step not only for press freedom in Turkey

Two Turkish journalists - daily editor-in-chief Cumhuriyet Can Dündar and its Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gül - were released from prison in the early hours of Feb. 26 after being in pre-trial detention for 92 days. The release came after a decision by the Constitutional Court on the evening of Feb. 25.

The court ruled that what Dündar and Gül did in their reporting was not military espionage, as earlier decided by the 14th Istanbul Criminal Court, but came within the bounds of press freedom. Upon the higher court's ruling, the Istanbul court had to release the two journalists from the infamous Silivri prison. 

The trial of Dündar and Gül, who are unable to travel abroad as part of their release, will continue.

They will be tried based on reports published in Cumhuriyet in 2015 on National Intelligence Organization (M?T) trucks allegedly transporting military material into Syria illegally, and the halting of those trucks by prosecutors and gendarmerie forces in January 2014. 

The case against Dündar and Gül claims that those prosecutors, judges and gendarmerie officials were acting on the orders of Fethullah Gülen, an Islamist scholar living in the U.S. who they say established a "parallel structure" within the state in order to overthrow (then prime minister) President Tayyip Erdo?an's Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Gülen - who was once Erdo?an's close ally during probes and court cases like Ergenekon, Balyoz and OdaTV, as well as military espionage cases against the secular establishment within the military, academia, judiciary and media - is now regarded as an arch enemy by Erdo?an and Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu.

After Dündar and Gül printed documents about the M?T trucks, they were accused of revealing...