Journalist Ahmet Sik, an investigative journalist of opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet. Credit:AP "They think we will be scared and silenced," he said. "What I say is not defence or expression. On the contrary, it is an accusation," he said. "There are not many remaining who are trying to uncover the truth," he said of the many hardships faced by Turkey's journalists. "More than anything," he added, "we need more truth."

The trial, which has made defendants of some of Turkey's best-known journalists, is being closely watched at home and abroad, at a time when the Turkish government has earned the distinction of being the most prolific jailer of journalists in the world. Media advocates say the case is part of a harsh, year-long crackdown by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on opposition voices, and a critical test of the state's tolerance for free speech. Sik's testimony exploded on social media as it was delivered. The issues at stake in the case also mirror Turkey's broader arguments in the year since the government fended off a coup attempt: The country has wrestled with questions about the judiciary's independence, the dwindling influence of opposition parties, the government's growing power and the definitions of patriotism, loyalty and treason. The arrests of the Cumhuriyet employees began last northern autumn, as the authorities were carrying out a massive purge of state institutions, ostensibly focused on followers of the Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, the accused mastermind of the coup attempt.

As it shuttered media outlets and arrested journalists, the government invoked the state's enemies in Gulen's movement as well as Kurdish militants. In the case of Cumhuriyet - which had been openly hostile to the Gulen movement - the charges rang especially hollow, the paper's supporters said. The government's antipathy toward the newspaper was more deeply rooted, they said, and included anger at its publishing of a photograph purporting to show Turkish intelligence sending truckloads of weapons to Syrian rebels. The government has denied jailing large numbers of media workers, but has narrowly defined who can be considered a journalist. The indictment against Cumhuriyet accuses the newspapers' employees - including its cartoonist, a staff lawyer and editor-in-chief - of a sprawling number of offences, including "acting in accordance with the goals" of a handful of militant organisations, and publishing articles designed to "create internal turmoil and bring the country to an ungovernable state through manipulation and hiding the truth." Dozens of the newspaper's supporters gathered in a plaza outside the courthouse on Monday, shortly before the trial got underway. Standing among them was Ahmet Sik's brother, Bulent Sik, an academic who lost his job as a university professor in the purge after the coup attempt.

As Bulent told it, Ahmet and his colleagues were on trial solely because their journalism had struck a nerve with the government - including articles that detailed the once-close relationship between Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and the Gulen movement. "They don't want journalists telling them they worked hand-in-hand," Bulent Sik said, adding that he was happy that the case was finally coming to trial. Two days later, though, after sitting through hours of court testimony, he was far less hopeful. The judges seemed disengaged, he said, as if they were going through the motions. He doubted that when the current hearing ended at the end of the week that his brother would be released. It was not clear whether Ahmet Sik's blistering speech helped or hurt. Loading

He referred to the partnership between the AKP and the Gulen movement as a "Mafioso coalition", and suggested that the government knew far more than it let on about the coup attempt a year ago. Washington Post