Meanwhile, two Turkish generals serving in Afghanistan were detained in Dubai on suspicion of links to the failed coup, an official said.
Advertisement
Turkey’s government has made a decision to close down dozens of media outlets, including 45 newspapers and 16 television stations in the wake of a failed military coup, the country’s state-run news agency reported Wednesday.
The United States said on Wednesday it understood Turkey’s need to hold perpetrators of the attempted coup to account but said the detention of more journalists was part of a “worrisome trend”.
The former governor of Istanbul, Huseyin Avni Mutlu, was also taken in for questioning, among nine former senior officials detained in the latest moves.
“There is a need for an intelligent and rational review by our interlocutors”, Albayrak said Wednesday.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has chronicled the situation facing journalists in Turkey, including a timeline that’s current as of May 2016.
Earlier this month its managing editor and manager were sentenced to 11 months in prison, later reduced to a €3,150 fine for “publicly insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan”.
The National Press Club has spoken out multiple times in the previous year over its concerns about the deteriorating press freedom conditions in Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally and key USA security partner. A state of emergency enacted after the coup attempt allows Turkey’s executive to issue decrees, which are then sent to parliament for approval.
On the Turkish street, though, support for the government’s response to the coup remains high.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said suspects were now being questioned. “We simply cannot understand why the USA just can’t hand over this individual”, Yildirim complained.
Mr Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania but whose movement has a wide following in Turkey where it runs a large network of schools, has denied any involvement in the failed coup.
It is all part of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to remove what he says is a “parallel state” that he says US-based cleric and former ally Fethullah Gulen was trying to build in Turkey in an effort to wrest power from Erdogan.
Nearly two thirds of Turks believe Gulen was behind the coup attempt, according to a poll released on Tuesday. “But the United States must resist it”, Gulen wrote.
More than 2,000 people were injured.
These are the grim conditions that numerous thousands who were arrested in Turkey face in the aftermath of a recent failed coup, witnesses tell Amnesty International.
The 11 soldiers being hunted in Marmaris were among a group of commandos who attacked a hotel where Erdogan had been staying.
The United Bank of Africa (UBA) has clarified reports linking it to the funding of the failed coup plotted in Turkey. He “evaded death by minutes”, an official close to him said at the time.
“The investigation is continuing, there are people who are being searched for”.
“For certain people who have been appointed to certain positions, Turkey will not pay credit [to them]”. Among those detained were 44 soldiers and dozens of officers, including three colonels.
Special forces police, commandos, the coast guard, and the navy were all involved, Cicek said in a statement.
“We will see more developed relations and that is what needs to take place”, he said, adding: “We have. common interests, a common future”.
Advertisement
The military said it had the power to suppress any further uprisings.
