Ufuk Sanli, Millet
Medium:Print
Charge:Anti-State
Imprisoned:July 28, 2016

Police detained Ufuk Sanli, chief business editor for the shuttered daily newspaper Millet, on July 28, 2016, the daily Milliyet reported. The same day, Istanbul's First Court of Penal Peace arraigned him on charges of "being a member of a [terrorist] organization." He was accused of being a follower of exiled preacher Fethullah Gülen, whom the Turkish government accuses of maintaining a terrorist organization and "parallel state structure" (FETÖ/PDY, by its Turkish acronym) and of masterminding a July 15, 2016, failed military coup.

Sanli turned himself in, in the coastal city of Izmir, when he learned police were searching his home in Istanbul, his lawyers told the court, according to court records seen by CPJ.

According to its order to jail Sanli pending trial, Istanbul's First Court of Penal Peace

concluded that Sanli's employment at Millet contributed to the "reasonable suspicion" that the journalist was a member of FETÖ/PDY. Police on October 28, 2015, raided the office of the newspaper's parent company, the Koza Ipek Group, after a court found that the company had links to FETÖ/PDY and ordered it placed under the trusteeship of figures chosen by the government, CPJ reported at the time. The government used emergency powers it assumed after the failed military coup to order the newspaper closed by decree.

Prosecutors also interrogated the journalist about his seven years' employment at Aksiyon magazine, which the government also ordered closed by decree using emergency powers after the failed coup, asserting that the magazine had links to FETÖ/PDY.

According to court records, prosecutors also asked Sanli about material he posted to Twitter the night of July 15, criticizing the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's "attempt to design the military," and the president's influence over the judiciary.

As of late 2016, Sanli had not been indicted, and no date had been set for his trial.

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