Istanbul: Turkish Police conducted multiple raids across the country on Sunday, targeting journalists and presumed critics of the government, the DHA news agency reported.
Among those caught up in the operations were the former chief of Istanbul’s anti-terrorism unit. The Istanbul offices of the newspaper Zaman — which has been linked to US-based cleric Fatallah Gulen, an ally-turned-critic of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — were also searched.
Protesters gathered in front of the newspaper to denounce the raid. However, chief editor Ekrem Dumanli denied via Twitter reports that he had been arrested.
Broadcaster NTV reported that 32 arrest warrants were issued in 13 provinces.
Erdogan has accused Gulen of gaining influence within the courts and the ranks of the police to try to overthrow the government. Gulen has denied the accusations.
The raids on Zaman daily and Samanyolu television marked an escalation of Erdogan’s battle with ex-ally Gulen, with whom he has been in open conflict since a graft investigation targeting Erdogan’s inner circle emerged a year ago.
In scenes broadcast live on Turkish TV channels, top-selling Zaman’s editor-in-chief Ekrem Dumanli smiled and studied police documents before being led through the newspaper’s headquarters to applause from staff crowded onto balconies “Let those who have committed a crime be scared,” he said as police struggled to escort him through the crowds to a waiting car. “We are not scared,” Several hundred people chanted “The free press cannot be silenced” and “Turkey is proud of you”.
Arrest warrants have been issued for 32 people, media reports say. State broadcaster TRT Haber said 24 had been detained in raids across EU-candidate Turkey, including two former police chiefs. Producers and staff from two Samanyolu drama series were held, along with the TV group’s chairman.
“This is a shameful sight for Turkey,” chairman Hidayet Karaca said before his arrest. “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.” 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.
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”.
Erdogan accuses Gulen of establishing a “parallel structure” in the state through his supporters in the judiciary, police and other institutions, while wielding influence through the media.
The cleric, living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, denied he sought to overthrow Erdogan’s government.
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.
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 Dec. 17 last year, led to the resignation of three ministers and prompted a purge by Erdogan, reassigning thousands of police and hundreds of judges and prosecutors.
He has also pushed through laws tightening control of the judiciary, most recently a law restructuring two top courts.
Prosecutors have meanwhile dropped the corruption cases.
