Cumhuriyet daily Editor-in-Chief Can Dündar has resigned from his post and handed over his editorial authorities to executive board of the Cumhuriyet Foundation.
Dündar, who came to post in February 2015, announced his resignation with an announcement he sent to the staff of the daily.
“For the last year, I have been trying to do my duty in this paper while also dealing with accusations, threats, hearings, serving time in jail, conviction, being shot at, statements, defenses and insults. … Although there is not a slightest decrease in my enthusiasm for journalism and my determination in reporting, I feel physically and mentally exhausted,” Dündar said.
The resignation came soon after the daily’s Editorial Consultant Doğan Satmış was fired along with resignations of Deputy Chief Editor Tahir Özyurtseven, Managing Editor Baydu Can and many other editors.
Dündar will reportedly go abroad and continue writing a column for the daily.
Dündar is currently on trial and accused of “espionage” after publishing an article on the alleged transportation of weapons to radical groups in Syria by Turkish intelligence.
The charges stem from a terrorism investigation launched after Cumhuriyet in May of last year published photos of weapons it said were being transferred to Syria in trucks operated by MİT.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has cast the newspaper’s coverage as part of an attempt to undermine Turkey’s global standing, said he would not forgive such reporting.
He has acknowledged that the trucks, which were stopped by gendarmerie and police officers en route to the Syrian border, belonged to the MİT and said they were carrying aid to Turkmens in Syria.