By Ayla Jean Yackley and Daren Butler
Turkish authorities seized control of the country’s largest newspaper on Friday, state-run media said, in a widening crackdown against supporters of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, an influential foe of President Tayyip Erdogan.
Administrators have been appointed to run the Zaman newspaper at the request of an Istanbul prosecutor, state-run Anadolu Agency reported. Officials were not immediately available to confirm the reports.
It was unclear how the paper’s sister publications, including the English-language Today’s Zaman, would be affected.
The move against Zaman came hours after police detained prominent businessmen over allegations of financing what prosecutors described as a “Gulenist terror group”, Anadolu reported.
Erdogan accuses Gulen of conspiring to overthrow the government by building a network of supporters in the judiciary, police and media. Gulen denies the charges. The two men were allies until police and prosecutors seen as sympathetic to Gulen opened a corruption probe into Erdogan’s inner circle in 2013.
“This means the practical end of media freedom in Turkey. The media has always been under pressure, but it has never been so blatant,” Sevgi Akarcesme, editor-in-chief of Today’s Zaman, told Reuters.
“Taking over a newspaper is against the constitution, especially since there are no grounds for it. This amounts to the suspension of the constitution.”
Zaman is Turkey‘s biggest selling newspaper, with a circulation of 650,000 as of the end of February, according to media-sector monitor MedyaTava website.
Hundreds of supporters gathered in the rain outside Zaman’s Istanbul office where they waved Turkish flags and carried placards reading “Hands off my newspaper” and “Free media cannot be silenced”, live footage from Cihan, a broadcaster owned by the same parent as Zaman, showed.
MEDIA FREEDOM
The crackdown on Zaman comes at an already worrying time for press freedom in Turkey. Two prominent journalists from the pro-opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper were freed from jail last week after Turkey‘s top court ruled their detention was unlawful.
The two, who were arrested in November, still face potential life sentences on charges of intentionally aiding an armed terrorist organisation and publishing material in violation of state security over a story last year that purported to show intelligence officials trucking arms to Syria.
Authorities have seized and shut down opposition media outlets associated with the Gulen movement before. The state deposit insurance fund said this week an Islamic bank founded by Gulen followers might be liquidated within months.
Gulen’s movement has adherents in the United States, Africa and Asia, where it runs private schools and says it promotes interfaith dialogue.
Earlier on Friday police detained Memduh Boydak, chief executive of furniture-to-cables conglomerate Boydak Holding, as well as the group’s chairman Haci Boydak and two board members, Anadolu reported.
Haci Boydak and Memduh Boydak were accused of being members of the “Gulenist terror group” and providing it with financial support, Anadolu said. Board members Murat Bozdag and Erol Boydak were accused of spreading the group’s propaganda on social media, it said, adding that all were detained at home.
Nobody from the company, based in the central Turkish city of Kayseri, was available to comment
Erdogan has accused Gulen of operating a “parallel state structure” bent on toppling him.
Government officials have also accused Gulen’s followers of having ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Gulen denies such links and describes the PKK as a terrorist organisation.
