Academic Nuray Mert has been fired from the Cumhuriyet daily, for which she has been writing columns since April 2015, for not complying with the pro-Atatürk and secularist line of the newspaper, t24 reported on Wednesday.
The decision was relayed Mert by Orhan Erinç, chairman of the executive board of the Cumhuriyet Foundation.
“Orhan Erinç said the decision was made with the consent of the editors of the daily who are in Silivri Prison,” Mert, told t24, adding that she was “invited by Akın Atalay, Cumhuriyet’s chief executive officer, to expand the narrow Kemalist vision of the daily.”
Mert, who writes two columns every week, has been at the center of debate over her article about Darwinism and a government decision to give the authority to officiate at civil marriages to muftis, official religious representatives.
Some columnists who write for Cumhuriyet also reacted negatively to Mert over the articles.