Turkish police have detained at least 23 people in orchestrated raids on opposition media outlets with close ties to the US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, a key critic of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The raids came days after Erdoğan announced a fresh operation against supporters of Gülen, a former ally whom Erdoğan accuses of having established a “parallel organisation” – an influential network within state institutions such as the police and judiciary as well as within the media – that aims to overthrow the Justice and Development party (AKP) government. Gülen denies the charge.
The detained, including journalists, producers, scriptwriters, directors, police officers and two former police chiefs, are accused of forming an illegal organisation whose members “engage in forgery and slander”, according to a statement published by the Istanbul public prosecutor’s office.
During one raid a crowd of supporters assembled at the offices of the Zaman daily and chanted: “The free press cannot be silenced.” The newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Ekrem Dumanli, gave a defiant speech, widely publicised in Turkish media, in which he challenged police to arrest him. He was detained, as was the head of the Samanyolu Media Group, Hidayet Karaca.
“This is a shameful sight for Turkey”, Karaca told the press before he was seized by police. “Sadly this is how they treat a media group with tens of television and radio stations, internet media and magazines in 21st-century Turkey.”
The head of the main opposition Republican People’s party (CHP), Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu, called the raids “a coup against democracy” and accused the AKP of leading a “coup government”.
“[This] is not something that happens in healthy democracies. This is a coup process,” Kiliçdaroğlu said. “Detentions of journalists and dawn raids on television stations are not something we can accept under any circumstances.”
Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, called the raids a test. “This is the day of the test. Everyone will be held accountable for what they have done, and for their attitude toward democracy in this country,” he said in an address to members of the AKP in eastern Turkey.
The power and influence of Gülen and his network has long been a defining issue of Turkish politics. The domination of Erdogan’s AKP for more than a decade was aided by his alliance with Gülen, and those who dared to criticise the Gülen movement were swiftly punished. It looks like Turkey won't be joining the EU anytime soon, at this rate.
Ahmet Şık, an investigative journalist jailed in 2011 for writing a book on Gülen’s penetration of the police, harshly criticised the raids against Gülenist media outlets. “What happens to the [Gülen movement] today, itself a powerful supporter of the fascism we faced a few years ago, is also called fascism. It is an ethical obligation to oppose fascism”, he tweeted.
Human rights groups also criticised the raids. “The detention of journalists and editors in the context of this latest wider operation of arrests looks like another attempt to crack down on critical media”, Human Rights Watch said. “The burden is on the government to produce evidence to justify accusing Zaman and Samanyolu group editors and journalists of being part of an organisation which attempted to capture state power, as the Istanbul judge’s detention warrant states.”
The offensive against Gülen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, follows a corruption scandal in December last year that implicated the government, Erdoğan’s closest associates and his family. Maintaining that the allegations were a coup attempt, Erdoğan responded ferociously, purging the police of thousands of officers, transferring prosecutors linked to the investigation and tightening control over the judiciary. Prosecutors dropped the corruption charges this year.
Sunday’s media raids had been expected after an anonymous Twitter account that has previously announced similar police operations said security forces would detain 400 people last Friday, including approximately 150 journalists regarded as Gülen supporters.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/d ... tion-media
I'm surprised there haven't been any threads about this, especially since Erdoğan enjoys a lot of popularity among NSGers.
But really, Erdoğan? Really? Raiding opposition media? That's the kind of behavior I'd expect from some populist banana republic dictator. It looks like Turkey won't be joining the European Union anytime soon at this rate, and Erdoğan probably doesn't care. I feel really bad for the Turkish people, but that's on them for electing this asshole.
