Turkish police raided media outlets close to US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen on Sunday and detained 23 people nationwide in operations against what president Tayyip Erdogan says is a network conspiring to topple him.
The raids on Zaman newspaper and Samanyolu television marked an escalation of Mr Erdogan’s battle with former ally Mr Gulen, with whom he has been in open conflict since a graft investigation targeting Mr Erdogan’s inner circle emerged a year ago.
"The free press cannot be silenced," a crowd chanted at the offices of Zaman as its editor Ekrem Dumanli made a speech defiantly challenging police to detain him, while elsewhere in Istanbul the chairman of Samanyolu TV was being detained.
"This is a shameful sight for Turkey, " Mr Samanyolu TV group chairman Hidayet Karaca told reporters just before he himself was held.
“Sadly in 21st Century Turkey this is the treatment they dish out to a media group with tens of television and radio stations, internet media and magazines.”
Media reports said arrest warrants had been issued for 32 people. State broadcaster TRT Haber said 23 people had been detained in raids across EU-candidate Turkey, including two former police chiefs. As well as Karaca, a television producer, a director and scriptwriters were held.
Mr Erdogan, his AK Party elected in 2002, introduced many democratic reforms in his first years in power and curbed army involvement in politics. NATO allies often cited Turkey as an example of a successful Muslim democracy, but more recently critics have accused Erdogan of intolerance of dissent and, increasingly, a divisive reversion to Islamist roots.
English-language Today’s Zaman editor Bulent Kenes told Reuters police had shown them documentation which referred to a charge of ‘forming a gang to try and seize state sovereignty’.
Government ministers declined to make specific comments on the raids, but health minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu said “anyone who does wrong pays the price”, state media reported.
“Coup against democracy”
Commenting on the raids, main opposition CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu told reporters “this is a coup government. A coup is being carried out against democracy”.
Mr Erdogan accuses Mr Gulen of establishing a “parallel structure” within the state through his supporters in the judiciary, police and other state institutions, as well as wielding influence through the media. The cleric denies the accusation of seeking to overthrow Mr Erdogan’s government.
Mr Erdogan drew on Gulen’s influence in police and judiciary in the first years of his government in taming an army that had toppled four governments since 1960, including Turkey’s first Islamist-led cabinet. That relationship has dramatically soured.
Mr Erdogan, who consolidated his power further in moving from the prime minister’s office to the presidency in August, said on Friday he would pursue Gulen’s supporters into their “lairs”. He has described them in the past as terrorists and traitors.
The graft investigation, which became public with police raids on December 17th last year, led to the resignation of three ministers and prompted Erdogan to purge the state apparatus, reassigning thousands of police and hundreds of judges and prosecutors.
Mr Erdogan has also pushed through legislation increasing government control of the judiciary, most recently a law restructuring two top courts. Prosecutors have meanwhile dropped the corruption cases.
Sunday’s police raids had been expected for a several days after a widely-followed Twitter account, which has previously given advance warning of police operations, said police were set to detain some 400 people, including around 150 journalists regarded as Gulen supporters.
Reuters