Arrested journalist Hidayet Karaca’s letter published in Le Monde

In a letter featured in the French newspaper Le Monde on Monday, imprisoned Samanyolu Broadcast Group President Hidayet Karaca warns the world over the increasing media crackdown, perpetrated by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
In a letter featured in the French newspaper Le Monde on Monday, imprisoned Samanyolu Broadcast Group President Hidayet Karaca warns the world over the increasing media crackdown, perpetrated by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.


Date posted: February 10, 2015

EMRE DEMİR / PARIS

Arrested journalist Hidayet Karaca’s letter detailing the threats that the media in Turkey face was published by Le Monde, one of the leading newspapers in France, on Monday.

Karaca, the chairman of the Samanyolu Broadcasting Group, has been imprisoned for 57 days following a media crackdown on Dec. 14 due to a fictitious TV series that aired on his TV channel.

In his letter to Le Monde, a daily with a circulation of 312,000 and which receives 64 million visitors to its web site monthly, Karaca said the independent media in Turkey is under an unprecedented threat.

In the letter that was published under the title “I am Hidayet Karaca, an arrested journalist in [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan’s Turkey,” Karaca said he is not the first journalist to be arrested in Turkey, but given the authoritarian practices of the government, he will not be the last journalist to be arrested either. Karaca stated that the pressure on the media in Turkey goes far beyond what is visible.

Referring to the march of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu in Paris following the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in January, Karaca said Davutoğlu’s participation is both pleasing and ironic since the Turkish government argues that many journalists are imprisoned because of their terrorist involvement.

“The writer of this letter is among those terrorist-journalists ” Karaca pointed out, noting he has been a journalist for 22 years and is an executive of one of the five major media groups in Turkey with 14 TV channels broadcasting in different languages including Turkish, English, Arabic and Kurdish.

Karaca said his media group, along with the Gülen movement, also known as the Hizmet movement and inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, has been the latest victims of the “witch hunt” by the government. He added that any dissident in Turkey are proclaimed as being a “traitor” and his media group has become a target for not supporting the worsening conditions in Turkey.

Source: Today's Zaman , February 09, 2015


Related News

Top union: Closing prep schools to leave 60,000 jobless

Turkey’s largest business confederation, the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB), has said a government plan to shut down private exam preparatory schools (dershanes) will leave an estimated 60,000 teachers at these institutions jobless while causing financial losses to investors.

Minister Yildirim’s high praise for Fethullah Gulen

Minister of Transportation, Maritime and Communication, Binali Yildirim, spoke at the Turkish Language Olympiads Cultural Festival participated by two thousand students from 140 countries, at Kulturpark in Izmir. In his remarks, Yildirim said: “Izmir is the city of tolerance, tourism and maritime, compared to a queen in Victor Hugo’s diaries. You’ve added to its beauty. […]

Prep school transformation plan violates Constitution, experts say

DERVİŞ GENÇ, İSTANBUL A government plan to shut down Turkey’s prep schools — or “transform” them, as the government argues — violates the Turkish Constitution and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), according to experts. “Parliament can neither close the prep schools with a law nor force them to transform. […]

Human Rights Watch: People being tortured, abducted in post-coup Turkey

People detained after the last year’s failed putsch have been subject to torture in police custody while several others were abducted outside detention facilities, according to a recent report by the Human Rights Watch. The New York-based watchdog documented human rights abuses occurred between March and August 2017 in its 43-page report, “In Custody: Police Torture and Abductions in Turkey.”

Malaysia Exposes Abductions By Erdoğan’s Long Arm In Asia

Turkey has adopted a new thuggish tactic in persecuting its critics and opponents abroad by orchestrating abductions, enforced disappearance and extrajudicial renditions in addition to profiling and harassment of Turkish expatriates by government institutions and clandestine groups, a report released by Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) has revealed.

Organization (Kimse Yok Mu?) helped 79 Syrian families

“Is Anybody There?” Organization officials delivered donations, blankets and food to Syrian families with the coordination of AFAD (Disaster and Emergency Management Department) officials. The president of “Is Anybody There?” Elazig branch, Mr. Onder Colak, noted that they have been making donations to Syrian refugees in Turkey since the first days of civil war outbreak in Syria.

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In Case You Missed It

President Erdoğan envies the Hizmet according to prominent columnist

EU calls on Turkey to Investigate abduction cases targeting Gülen Movement

AK Party’s ’parallel’ election campaign

Retired on disability, former bomb disposal expert kept in jail for a month over Gülen links

Plan to finish off the Hizmet movement

Who put those 4.5 million dollars there?

Erdoğan vows to strip Gülen sympatizers off Turkish citizenship

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News