A lower court had just began hearing the case of the activists, including the country's Reporters Without Borders (RSF) representative, before adjourning the case until February 1 following the request which will be reviewed by a higher court.

Erol Onderoglu, the Turkey representative for RSF (the group's French acronym) and his co-defendants each risk being jailed for 14.5 years for joining a campaign to support a newspaper that was shut in 2016 for having alleged links to outlawed Kurdish militants.

The Ozgur Gundem paper was closed after President Recep Erdogan launched a crackdown on opposition media and his political rivals after he survived a failed coup in July 2016.

Defence lawyers asked the court on Wednesday to remove Murat Bircan, one of the judges from the trial because of his affiliation with Erdogan's ruling AKP party, saying that his presence undermines the possibility of a fair trial.

"This is important for us to have a clean jury at least in appearance where there is clear political interference in the judiciary in Turkey," Onderoglu told AFP after the hearing.

This trial is one of the most striking examples of the absence of an independent judiciary in Turkey because of the presence of someone who led a campaign for the ruling AKP party, according to RSF and human rights advocates.

The campaign in support of Ozgur Gundem involved Onderoglu and dozens of others taking turns editing the paper for a day to help it survive Erdogan's crackdown.

"In fact, we prefer to do our most basic job rather than come to the courts and testify as a defendant," Onderoglu said.

"Journalists need solidarity and support more than ever."

The Turkish-language paper was popular in the country's large Kurdish community but denied links to militants who have been waging an insurgency against the state since 1984.

Tens of thousands have been jailed in Turkey or stripped of their government jobs during Erdogan's post-coup crackdown.