Brawls broke out and police sprayed water cannon to disperse dozens of people in front of the offices of Kanalturk and Bugun TV in Istanbul, a live broadcast on Bugun’s website showed. “This holds true for anyone who does not obey”, editor in chief of Bugun TV, Tarik Toros, said. “This is true for anyone who does not obey”.
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“Today is a shameful day…”
The seizure comes amid more widespread pressure on critical media in Turkey that worldwide watchdogs have called a crisis for the free press.
“We continue to urge Turkish authorities to ensure their actions uphold universal democratic values… including due process, freedom of expression and assembly, and of course access to media and information”, State Departement spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday.
Turkish authorities appointed several trustees to replace the management of the İpek Koza Holding subsidiary, which houses media outlets that emerged as the main platform for opposition politicians over recent months, and cut the broadcast on Wednesday.
Demonstrators gathered at Koza-Ipek’s Ankara premises on Wednesday in protest of the decision.
The Ankara chief prosecutor’s office said the seizure was linked to an investigation into the conglomerate on suspicion of “terror financing”, “terror propaganda” and other offences related to Koza-Ipek’s support for Gulen’s Hizmet (Service) movement. Shares in three public companies owned by the same group tumbled further on the Istanbul exchange.
“Raiding media outlets and taking over their assets just days before an election raises questions about media freedom”, said Daniel Holtgen, spokesperson of Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland. The prosecutor in charge of the operation claimed that the detained journalists defamed the group through print coverage and a soap opera that prompted police raids. If the AK Party wins an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections on Sunday, Erdogan would be able to change the constitution to a presidential system. Supporters of the corporation have decried the move as an illegal attempt to nationalize and control media that are adversarial towards President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Gulen was once an ally of Erdogan, but the two fell out after police and prosecutors seen as sympathetic to the preacher opened a corruption investigation against the inner circle of the Turkish president, then prime minister, in 2013.
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Hundreds of people, believed to be sympathizers of Gulen, many of them members of the police and the judiciary, have been arrested ahead of the snap elections, where the ruling party seeks to restore its majority in the parliament.
