Ayhan Bilgen, editor-in-chief of Günlük, said the closing sabotages the democratic initiative process regarding the Kurdish issue. The İstanbul 13rd Heavy Criminal Court decided that the newspaper's Aug. 22 edition printed PKK propaganda.
Günlük, founded on Jan. 19, was closed once earlier because of a photograph printed in its June 1 issue.
“It is always a wrong act to close a newspaper. But doing it at this time means sabotaging the initiative regarding the Kurdish issue,” Bilgen said, referring to government's recent plans to launch a series of reforms to address grievances of Turkey's Kurdish population and end the PKK's decades-old terrorist campaign. He added that a solution to the Kurdish problem can only be found by not retreating from democratic rights and freedoms. He also said sabotaging the democratic process is quite possible through judicial interventions, not just by mines and bombs.
