Garo Paylan

The third hearing in the Cumhuriyet trial, in which 20 executives and journalists from the critical Turkish newspaper are being tried, including editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu, reporter Ahmet Şık, columnist Kadri Gürsel and cartoonist Musa Kart, began on Sept. 25 at Istanbul's Çağlayan Courthouse.  

An Istanbul court ordered the release of journalist Kadri Gürsel on Sept. 25 in the third hearing in the Cumhuriyet trial, in which 20 executives and journalists from the critical Turkish newspaper are being tried, including editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu and reporter Ahmet Şık at Istanbul's Çağlayan Courthouse.

The opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has started its "conscience and justice watch" in Istanbul's Kadıköy district with the participation of several lawmakers. 

The Kurdish issue-focused HDP started its watch on Aug. 1 in Kadıköy's Yoğurtçu Park after spending a week in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır. 

Police on April 6 intervened in a sit-in staged by a group of lawyers demanding the release of arrested colleagues in the daily Cumhuriyet case at Istanbul's Çağlayan courthouse, detaining eight of them.

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Istanbul deputy Garo Paylan applied on Jan. 16 to the Constitutional Court, demanding that the top court annul his temporary suspension from parliament after using the word "genocide" in reference to the World War I-era mass killings of Ottoman Armenians.

The lawyer of arrested Turkish journalist Ahmet Şık said on Dec. 31 that his team will appeal against a court decision to arrest him.

The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office has prepared a summary of proceedings for 12 deputies for violating an article of the rally and demonstration marches law, as well as violating privacy of the trial, as part of the closed-door trial of Cumhuriyet journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül in the case of intelligence trucks bound for Syria. 

Another brawl erupted between ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputies during a constitutional commission meeting to discuss legislation on lifting lawmakers' immunity from prosecution on May 2, adding to the recent chain of fistfights among deputies over the past week. 

Deputies from Armenian, Syriac, Yazidi, Mhallami and Roma origins, who secured seats in the June 7 election, have all preserved their seats in the Nov. 1 election, weekly Agos has reported.

Peoples? Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirta? made a visit to the building of daily Hürriyet on Oct. 8 to express his support to the daily in the wake of recent attacks on the daily and one of its leading journalists.