The closure was ordered of three news agencies, 16 television stations, 23 radio stations, 45 newspapers, 15 magazines and 29 publishers, the official gazette added.
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The Supreme Military Council, gathering top commanders of NATO’s second-largest army, met a day after Turkey discharged close to 1,700 officers – including 149 generals and admirals – suspected of involvement in the failed July 15 coup attempt.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the death toll as a result of the military coup attempt stood at 246 people excluding the coup plotters and over 2,000 people were wounded. “The purging of journalists has reached alarming proportions”, Reporters without Borders reported.
They have also issued warrants for the detention of 47 former executives or senior journalists of Turkey’s Zaman newspaper.
In the wake of the coup the military has already lost control of the coastguard and gendarmerie, which will now be dependent on the interior ministry.
In a recent statement, Johann Bihr, head of the group’s desk in Eastern Europe and Central Asia said: “No one disputes the Turkish government’s legitimate right to defend constitutional order after this abortive coup but democracy, for which hundreds of civilians gave their lives, can not be protected by trampling on fundamental freedoms”.
The Turkish Armed Forces said 8,651 members of the military, or about 1.5% of the force, took part in the putsch attempt, noting that this shows the “overwhelming majority” of soldiers opposed the overthrow. The men – three majors, three captains and two sergeant majors – deny being involved in the coup, but Ankara has branded them “traitors” and is demanding their extradition.
Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency in Turkey on July 20.
The attempted coup has also tested Turkey’s ties with its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally the United States, where Gulen has lived in self-imposed exile since 1999.
Earlier, Turkish presidential administration told Trend that Ankara will do its best to extradite Fethullah Gulen, who is considered to be the organizer of the coup attempt. In 2013, his followers in the police and judiciary opened a corruption probe into business associates of Erdogan, then prime minister, who denounced the investigation as a foreign plot.
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On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said talks with Russian officials this week on improving bilateral relations had taken place “in a very positive atmosphere”.
