Arrested Turkish Development

Protesters hold copies of the latest edition of the Turkish daily newspaper
Protesters hold copies of the latest edition of the Turkish daily newspaper "Cumhuriyet" during a demonstration in support to the Cumhuriyet in front of its headquarters in Istanbul on Nov. 1. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES


Date posted: November 8, 2016

Ankara uses July’s coup as a pretext to crack down on journalism.

Another day, another mass arrest in Turkey. At least 13 journalists were taken into custody in predawn raids Monday morning, including Murat Sabuncu, the editor of Cumhuriyet, the country’s leading secular newspaper. That follows the weekend closure of the country’s only Kurdish-language daily. The government has shuttered at least 120 news outlets since July’s failed military coup.

The government insists the closures are a response to that coup, in which some 300 people were killed. The claim would be easier to credit if President Recep Tayyip Erdoganhadn’t spent his 14 years in power tightening restrictions on news and social media. Can Dündar, Mr. Sabuncu’s predecesser at Cumhuriyet, was arrested last year and sentenced to nearly six years in prison for publishing a story detailing alleged weapons’ transfers by Turkish intelligence to Islamist radicals in Syria. Freed on bail, Mr. Dündar now lives in Germany.

Similar fates have befallen scores of other Turkish journalists before and after the coup. Another 2,500 have lost their jobs. They join the ranks of 100,000 school teachers, judges, university professors and military officers who have been dismissed on suspicion of being insufficiently loyal to Mr. Erdogan, who now rules by decree. Thousands more have been sent to prison in the largest mass purge the world has seen in decades.

The Obama Administration has been mostly quiet throughout this crackdown and continues to entertain Ankara’s request to extradite Pennsylvania-based Muslim cleric Fetullah Gulen, the coup’s supposed mastermind. Turkey is a member of NATO and both the U.S. and the European Union believe they need Ankara to fight Islamic State in Syria and curb the flow of refugees to Europe.

Maybe so. But that does not relieve the West from the obligation of denouncing Mr. Erdogan’s repression. Mr. Gulen should not be extradited so long as he cannot expect a fair trial in Turkey. And Turkey should not remain a member of NATO if Mr. Erdogan continues on his increasingly lawless path.

Source: The Wall Street Journal , November 2, 2016


Related News

People overwhelmingly support democracy as answer to Kurdish issue

About 90 percent of the Turkish public believe the Kurdish question cannot be settled through military means but by democratization, and that expanding cultural rights and negotiating are the answers that will finally produce a settlement for Turkey’s decades-long problem with separatist terrorism, according to a recent survey conducted by pollster MetroPOLL.

Turkey, The great purge – Four lives upturned by Erdogan’s ‘cleansing.’ Episode 2 – Mehmet

Following the July 15, 2016, coup attempt, Erdogan promised to “cleanse” Turkey of a “virus” that has plagued its state institutions. That cleansing has been primarily directed at two organisations: the PKK and the Gulen movement. But the crackdown on both organisations began long before the July coup attempt.

AK Party gov’t spokesman confirms National Intelligence Organization profiling of faith-based movements

The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government spokesman confirmed that the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) profiled some movements and groups, but rejected allegations that the government had taken action against those groups upon MİT profiling. AK Party government spokesperson Hüseyin Çelik raised the issue of government profiling of a large number of individuals who […]

Political thunder from Turkey rumbles all the way to New Orleans

And how appalling that they should now be exposed to the atrocious anti-Muslim diatribes of a U.S. presidential candidate not all that different from Erdogan in his threats and his bigotry.

TUSKON says systematic campaign of defamation is under way

The Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists’ (TUSKON) has criticized what it said a systematic campaign of defamation against the business conglomolarete, stressing that its business activities that help contribute to Turkish economy should only be welcomed.

GYV Presient Yesil: We knock on all doors

Mustafa Yesil is the president of the Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV), which is known as the Gulen community’s institutional representative. He has addressed a wide range of issues, among them the Gulen movement, eavesdropping, the arrest of Aziz Yildirim (chairman, Fenerbahce soccer team), the National Intelligence Institution’s (MIT’s) head Hakan Fidan’s query.

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

Turkey further from EU accession than in 2007, Swoboda says

Erdogan’s Faux Coup may have been Turkey’s Reichstag Fire

Pro-Erdoğan journalist: Gülen followers should be kept in detention camps, given food tickets

Gülen movement reiterates principles, underlines transparency in statement

Peacebuilders Conference

Erdoğan’s propagandist think tanks

No secularism or democracy without religious freedom

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News