In November 2015 Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper and its Ankara Bureau Chief Erdem Gul were arrested on charges of divulging state secrets and espionage. Their so-called crime was informing the public of the discovery of a covert arms shipment. The newspaper had obtained footage taken months earlier by the police when they intercepted several trucks ostensibly shipping medicines to Syria. Searches revealed weapons hidden beneath boxes of medicines; the drivers turned out to be from Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency. Having assumed an authority it did not have, the country’s intelligence service was secretly shipping weapons to a neighbouring country, destined, in all likelihood, for radical Islamist organisations - illegally making Turkey a party in the Syrian civil war.
This was a crime that was in the government’s interest to conceal, and a journalist’s duty to expose. But whereas in other famous cases of political wrong-doing - Watergate, Iran -Contra, the Pentagon Papers - it was the guilty who were prosecuted, in Turkey today, it is often the journalist.
The title of the book is taken from Can Dundar’s tweet on the day he was detained. The book is his account of the discovery, the weighing up of the pros and cons of publishing, and the events that unfolded after the decision. Dundar and the newspaper faced police barricades, would-be suicide bombers and assassination attempts, as well as fierce attacks from pro-government media.
Incarcerated in Silivri Prison, Dundar decided to write down his experiences. Here, in isolation, he learned to appreciate the little things: writing loved ones’ names in fresh snow in massive letters so pas sing aeroplanes can read them, the taste of a hot cheese toastie, the kindness of strangers and the importance of love. Most importantly, he realised that courage in an age of fear is essential if the public’s right to know is to be defended.
