Police fired teargas and water cannons on Friday to disperse a few thousand supporters who gathered outside the offices of the Zaman newspaper and chanted: “Free press can not be silenced”.
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Mr Gulen was placed on trial in absentia past year on charges of attempting to topple the government.
He warned on Twitter that Turkey, which is a long-standing candidate to join the European Union, needs to “respect the freedom of the media” and rights were “not negotiable”.
Erdogan has led the crackdown against once-influential followers of his former ally, after police and prosecutors seen as sympathetic to the cleric opened a corruption investigation into Erdogan’s inner circle in 2013.
The move means the court will appoint new managers to run the newspaper, who will be expected to transform its editorial line.
Zaman is Turkey’s biggest selling newspaper, with a circulation of 650,000 as of the end of February, according to MedyaTava, a website monitoring the media sector.
Turkish authorities were Saturday in control of a newspaper staunchly opposed to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after using tear gas and water cannon to seize its headquarters in a dramatic raid that raised fresh alarm over declining media freedoms.
Despite living outside of Turkey, Gulen built up huge influence in the country through allies in the police and judiciary, media and financial interests and a vast network of cramming schools.
After clearing their way through the crowd in front of the newspaper’s headquarters, the officers pushed their way inside the building.
The raid began shortly before midnight after a day of standoffs between police and opposition protesters furious about what they call a government crackdown on the free press.
“Join Index on Censorship, writers, journalists and artists from around the world to condemn the shocking seizure of Turkish independent media group, Zaman”, the change.org petition said. The EU, in particular, has been accused of keeping mute about human rights abuses and the deteriorating freedoms in Turkey because of the country’s crucial role in curtailing the flow of migrants to Europe.
The swoop caused immediate concern in Washington and Brussels amid the intensifying worries over the climate for freedom of expression in Turkey.
The Zaman takeover came hours after police detained businessmen over allegations of financing what prosecutors described as a “Gulenist terror group”, Anadolu said.
Dogan reported that 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.
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Nobody from the company, based in the central Turkish city of Kayseri, was available to comment.
