Journalists on trial highlight Turkey crackdown

Dozens filled a cramped Istanbul courtroom on Monday (25 July) to watch journalists from Turkey’s leading opposition newspaper stand trial in a case that critics say is one of the most important episodes in the pro-Islamic Turkish government’s systematic campaign to silence dissent.

Seventeen journalists and administrative employees of the daily Cumhuriyet are accused of aiding and abetting terror organisations, which the defendants claimed their paper stringently criticised in the past...