''Serbestî'' (

Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish ( ota, لِسانِ عُثمانى, Lisân-ı Osmânî, ; tr, Osmanlı Türkçesi) was the standardized register of the Turkish language used by the citizens of the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed exten ...

for "Liberty") was an Ottoman newspaper. It was founded in 1908 by

Mevlanzade Rifat Bey Mevlanzade Rifat Bey (1869 in Constantinople – 1930 in Aleppo), was an Ottoman-Kurdish journalist and poet, his family originated from Süleymaniye and were decedents of Khâlid-i Shahrazuri. Early life and family Mevlanzade's grandfather wa ...

, who in 1924 would become one of the 150 ''personae non gratae'' of the newly established

Republic of Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula i ...

. Because the paper and its founder had an oppositional and hostile stance to the

independence movement Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...

led by Mustafa Kemal. The paper opposed the progressive

Committee of Union and Progress The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) ( ota, اتحاد و ترقى جمعيتی, translit=İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti, script=Arab), later the Union and Progress Party ( ota, اتحاد و ترقى فرقه‌سی, translit=İttihad ve Tera ...

(CUP), which was coming into power at the time of its founding. The editor-in-chief of ''Serbestî'',

Hasan Fehmi Bey Hasan Fehmi Bey (1874 – April 6, 1909) was an Ottoman journalist, who was the editor-in-chief of ''Serbestî'', an Ottoman newspaper owned by Mevlanzade Rifat Bey, in which he wrote articles against the newly emerging Committee of Union and ...

, was murdered on 6 April 1909 by unknown assailants. Following this incident Mevlanzade Rifat Bey left Istanbul and settled in Paris where he published ''Serbestî'' for a short period. Next he went to Egypt and published the paper there until February 1910 when it was banned. Following his return to the Ottoman Empire he resumed the publication of ''Serbestî'' in İstanbul on 12 July 1912. However, it was banned by the Ottoman authorities in September 1912. The paper was restarted later and published until 1923 with some interruptions.

References

1908 establishments in the Ottoman Empire Newspapers established in 1908 Defunct newspapers published in the Ottoman Empire Newspapers published in Istanbul Turkish-language newspapers Publications disestablished in 1923 Banned newspapers {{Turkey-newspaper-stub