Veteran journalist Gürsel turns himself in to start serving remaining time in jail
Turkey’s Constitutional Court on May 2 said that Gürsel’s rights to freedom and security had been violated during his prosecution.
Veteran journalist Kadri Gürsel on Wednesday turned himself to prison authorities to serve out his remaining jail sentence.
Gürsel, who had previously been incarcerated for 11 months, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years for disseminating terrorist propaganda in his column for the Cumhuriyet daily.
Turkey’s Constitutional Court on May 2 said that Gürsel’s rights to freedom and security had been violated during his prosecution.
Referring to the top court’s decision, Gürsel said it should have opened the way to a retrial instead of imprisonment.
Several other former Cumhuriyet journalists also turned themselves in on April 25 to start serving their time.
A press freedom report by the Council of Europe recently qualified Turkey as the world’s largest jailer of journalists.
The country was also ranked 157th out of 180 countries in the 2019 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders.
Source: Turkish Minute
