Turkey's media purge after the failed July 2016 coup d'état

The Chief Public Prosecutor's Office in Istanbul has demanded three aggravated life sentences for each of the 30 former Zaman Media Group employees, including editors and columnists, on charges of having links to the Fethullah Gülen network, the main suspect behind last year's foiled coup attempt. 

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) recently reached a very important decision concerning arrested journalists in Turkey. The court has decided to "prioritize" journalist/writer Şahin Alpay's appeal for release following almost seven-and-a-half months under arrest.

Prominent Turkish journalist Hasan Cemal was on March 1 convicted on charges of "insulting the president," receiving a suspended sentence of 11 months and 20 days over an article published in 2016. 

The state of freedom of expression in Turkey has deteriorated sharply over the past year, particularly since the state of emergency declared after the failed July 2016 coup attempt, Amnesty International's Annual Report stated on Feb. 22.

Prominent Turkish journalist Hasan Cemal has been convicted on charges of conducting "terror propaganda" due to a 2016 article regarding one of the leading figures of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), receiving a suspended sentence of one year, three months in jail.

One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, Aslı Erdoğan, has said she "is still worried and cannot feel free," despite her release after being held in prison for 136 days in the case into the shuttered daily Özgür Gündem on terror charges.

An Istanbul court on Jan. 13 sentenced musician Şanar Yurdatapan to one year and three months in prison in a case for participating in the "Editor-in-Chief on Duty" solidarity campaign with the now closed daily Özgür Gündem, marking the first conviction in the case.

One of Turkey's most prominent contemporary novelists and an internationally prominent linguist who has also made widely praised translations of Western novels into Turkish were released on probation on Dec. 29 after being arrested on charges of "making terrorist propaganda" for daily Özgür Gündem, which was closed in August on terrorism charges.

Lawyers for daily Cumhuriyet have filed separate, individual applications to the Constitutional Court on behalf of 10 journalists and managers who have been under arrest on terror charges in Istanbul's Silivri prison for 59 days, the daily reported on Dec. 28.

Arrested Author Aslı Erdoğan and lingiust Necmiye Alpay, meanwhile, will appear before judge for the first time. 

A case into daily Özgür Gündem's editors-in-chief on duty continued on Nov. 24, with the case being postponed until Feb. 14, 2017, against a number of arrested and non-arrested journalists.
A total of 16 names are being tried on terror charges as part of an investigation into the closed daily.