A security law granting broader authority to local governors, extended detention periods and powers to dismiss public servants was approved in the Turkish parliament on July 25. The two-year-old state of emergency imposed after the foiled 2016 coup was brought to an end at midnight on July 18 but the new security law has extended emergency powers on a permanent basis, leading critics to ask whether the emergency regime is truly over.

The European Union on July 19 welcomed the ending of the prolonged state of emergency but noted that the powers introduced under the new executive presidential system were excessive and worrying.

During the debate in parliament held on July 23, Ahmet Sik, an investigative journalist who has become an Istanbul MP representing the opposition People's Democratic Party (HDP), was verbally attacked by furious ruling AKP MPs, who hurled foul language at him. Deputy parliamentary speaker Mustafa Sentop then turned off his microphone and he was unable to complete his speech at the rostrum.

Alpay Ozalan, a former footballer and newly-elected MP of the ruling coalition Justice and Development Party (AKP), reportedly told Sik: “I have my eyes on you” during the ugly scenes. Ozalan was a defender famous for his man-marking skills. Sik later tweeted: “I have my words on you”.

The parliament voted to ban Sik from the next two sessions in response to his use of the words “immorality” and “shamelessness” while describing the government's policies.

In defence of Sik, HDP caucus deputy chairperson Fatma Kurtulan said that Sik’s statements were from the perspective of ethical values and did not personally target any AKP MPs.

Sik later told the daily Evrensel that he used the words “shamelessness” and “immorality” to define the government’s way of conducting politics and that he was not a person who would make insinuations about anybody’s private life. Sik also said that he would continue to deliver speeches in the parliament.

In releasing a photo of his response in the chamber to Sik, Ozalan quoted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s favourite Islamist poet, Necip Fazil Kisakurek, tweeting: “If keeping you alive is to die for you, I die one thousand times, I shall not let pass a slur on your name, the flag and the vexillum are pride and honour, I shall not let the cruel laugh!”

Sik spent 375 days in jail pending trial from March 3, 2011 to March 12, 2012. His case was part of the Ergenekon trials during which the public prosecutor Zekeriya Oz, currently a fugitive sought for the trials centred on what the government describes as the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETO), decided that Sik’s unpublished book, entitled “Imam’s Army” and referring to now self-exiled preacher Fethullah Gulen, was proof of Sik’s membership of Ergenekon, an alleged ultra-nationalist organisation.

The then PM, now executive president, Erdogan, defended the arrest of Sik, saying “some books are more dangerous than bombs”.

On March 30, 2011, Oz, who led the so-called Ergenekon coup investigations, was promoted, assigned as a deputy chief state prosecutor in Istanbul and removed from the Ergenekon case.

"Around 100 journalists are currently [serving time] in prison, but freedom of expression is not merely a problem for journalists in this country," Sik told local media upon his release on March 12, 2012. "There are currently about 600 university students [behind bars] and over 6,000 under arrest in the KCK [Kurdistan Communities Union] trials [...]. We are going to keep waging this struggle."

Later on, Sik spent another 15 months in jail pending trial together with colleagues from opposition daily Cumhuriyet from December 30, 2016 to March 9 this year. He was accused of tweeting and writing news articles for Cumhuriyet in support of terrorist organisations PKK, DHKP-C and FETO.

Sik was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. It was the harshest penalty handed down when a court on April 25 sentenced 14 staff of the Cumhuriyet newspaper to prison on terrorism charges and acquitted three. All those sentenced have appealed the verdict.

Foreign observers including German MEPs, the deputy head of mission for the British Consulate General in Istanbul and other European diplomats attended the July 24, 2017 opening day of the Cumhuriyet trial.

"It's clearly a political trial, it's to threaten independent journalists, especially ones like Ahmet Sik. He was one of the most known investigative journalists in Turkey and he is in prison because of his investigations and because of the quality of his articles and not because he is a terrorist," German MEP Rebecca Harms, a friend of Sik who also attended the trial's opening day, told Britain's Daily Telegraph.

Sik was elected as an HDP MP in the June 24 snap polls.