What a day to celebrate press freedom in Turkey

July 24 used to be celebrated by Turkish journalists as the anniversary of the abolishment of official press censorship in Turkey.

It began in 1908 after the second constitutional revolution toppled the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II along with his oppressive censorship on the press—even before the collapse of the Turkish Empire through WWI and an Independence War led to a republic in 1923.

Press Freedom Day in Turkey has not been celebrated for years but marked by journalistic associations. This year, it is marked with an additional meaning. By coincidence or not, 11 members of the press for the center-left daily Cumhuriyet are expected to appear before court for the first time on the 267th day of their arrests. (Meaning "republic" in Turkish, Cumhuriyet is the oldest newspaper in print in Turkey, since the declaration of the Turkish Republic.)

Cumhuriyet colleagues are accused of helping two different terror organizations at once by printing the details of a security operation in 2015 about the Turkish intelligence trucks carrying military equipment to rebel forces in Syria in 2014. These details had been published in part but later put under restriction by the court due to national security reasons.

The security operation itself was understood to be an inner fight within the state between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its arch-enemy turned former ally Fethullah Gülen, the Islamist preacher living in the U.S. Can Dündar, the editor-in-chief who printed the story is now living in Germany after being released after spending some time in prison. Because he wrote in his prison memories that his news source were not Gülenists but "a member of parliament" of the social democratic main opposition, the Republican...