Zaman newspaper: Turkey police raid press offices in Istanbul

US ally and fascist strongman in slo-mo Erdogan: the free press is simply too inconvenient. Pinochet and scores of other US-supported dictators have used the same playbook. We have seen this movie before.

THE BACKDROP TO THE LATEST CRISIS
[su_panel background=”#dad9e5″ color=”#261402″ shadow=”5px 1px 2px #eeeeee” radius=”2″]On Friday March 4, a Turkish court ruled that the country’s biggest daily newspaper, Zaman, would be run by appointed trustees – ostensibly because of its so called “terrorist” activities, but more likely because the publication was linked to US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gülen, an opponent of the government. Shortly after the court’s decision, police stormed the paper’s Istanbul headquarters in a dramatic midnight raid, firing tear gas and water cannon at the hundreds-strong crowd that formed outside. The new administrative members dismissed the editor, executive editor and other senior staff, transforming the newspaper’s editorial line, in less than 48 hours, from a rigorous opposition voice into a propaganda mouthpiece for the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. [/su_panel]

Zaman staffers protest the raid. They had been expecting it as someone had tipped them off.

Newspaper supporters being gassed by the police.

Turkish police have raided the offices of Zaman, the country’s biggest newspaper, hours after a court ruling placed it under state control.

Police entered the building in Istanbul late on Friday, firing tear gas at protesters who had gathered outside. Zaman is closely linked to the Hizmet movement of influential US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Turkey says Hizmet is a “terrorist” group aiming to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government.

Mr Gulen was once an ally of Mr Erdogan but the two fell out.

Many Hizmet supporters have been arrested.

Turkey’s de facto dictator and American accomplice in global mayhem Erdogan has his own agenda and that may give some extra headaches to his cynical handlers in Washington. But there’s almost nothing that Western propaganda can’t cure.

The government in Ankara has come under increasing international criticism over its treatment of journalists.

‘End of democracy’

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he court ruled on Friday that Zaman, that has a circulation of some 650,000, should now be run by administrators. No explanation was given. Later, hundreds of Zaman supporters gathered outside the newspaper’s offices to protest at the state takeover. One held a placard saying, “We will fight for a free press.”

Sueleyman Bag (R), editor of the German version of ‘Zaman’, and Cem Oezdemir (L), Federal Chairman of the ‘Buendnis 90/Die Gruenen’ party, hold up the current German edition of the newspaper (C-R), a satiric page with celebratory articles on Erdogan (C) and the latest edition of the Turkish paper (C-L) in front of the editorial office of the newspaper in Berlin, Germany, 07 March 2016. [EPA/BERND VON JUTRCZENKA]

“I believe that free media will continue even if we have to write on the walls,” Zaman’s editor-in-chief Abdulhamit Bilici said shortly before the raid. “I don’t think it is possible to silence media in the digital age.”

He was speaking to the Cihan news agency, which was also affected by the court order.

In a tweet, Zaman journalist Emre Soncan wrote: “Turkey’s government confiscated one of the country’s last critical voices, #Zaman Daily.. The end of democracy.” His colleague Abdullah Ayasun tweeted: “An army of riot police inside Zaman. They threw me out.”

Earlier, Zaman said Turkey was going through its “darkest and gloomiest days in terms of freedom of the press”.

The newspaper’s website was still functioning on Saturday, but did not carry news of the raid.

The US State Department described the takeover as “the latest in a series of troubling judicial and law enforcement actions taken by the Turkish government”.

The move against Zaman comes days after Turkey’s Constitutional Court ordered the release from detention of two Turkish journalists charged with revealing state secrets. Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, from the newspaper Cumhuriyet, were detained in November over a report alleging that the Turkish government had tried to ship arms to Islamists in Syria.

The pair still face possible life sentences at their trial on 25 March.

Last year, two newspapers and two television channels were put under state administration over their alleged links with the Hizmet movement.

PLEASE READ BELOW STEPHEN LENDMAN’S TAKE ON THIS OUTRAGE:

[su_spoiler title=”NOTORIOUS US ALLY CRACKS DOWN ON FREE PRESS. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE” su_spoiler style=”fancy” icon=”arrow-circle-1″]

by Stephen Lendman

[dropcap]L[/dropcap]ast Friday, Turkish authorities seized control of Zaman’s operations, including its English language Today’s Zaman edition, the nation’s largest circulation broadsheet. State prosecutors and rubber-stamp courts ordered its independent voice silenced, part of longstanding Turkish war on free media, unprecedented under Erdogan, a notorious world-class thug, welcomed as a valued ally in Western capitals.

Dissent is criminalized in Turkey. A previous article said criticizing regime policy risks imprisonment on charges ranging from insulting the president to terrorism, espionage or treason. Turkey imprisons more journalists than any other country. Zaman is now state controlled, transformed into a pro-regime mouthpiece. Security forces cordoned off its Istanbul offices.

On Monday, Reuters reported Zaman Almanya (Zaman Germany) intends “to continue publishing an opposition daily in Germany…” According to its editor-in-chief Sueleyman Bag, as of Monday, March 7, “we are printing a version of Zaman that has nothing to do with Zaman” in Turkey. Its first edition featured a black front page, headlining “(t)he constitution is abolished.” Its top online story featured “a veiled woman pressing her hand against her bleeding face outside the newspaper’s offices,” according to Reuters. It stood in stark contrast to Turkish-controlled Zaman’s Sunday edition, featuring a smiling Erdogan photo and pro-regime reports, undisguised propaganda.

Bag said Germany’s Zaman will feature independent journalism. “We still have not addressed the question of how we’ll do that. This is a new challenge for us,” he explained. Germany has about three million Turkish nationals. Zaman Almanya’s circulation is less than 15,000 – compared to around one million for Turkey’s Zaman and Today’s Zaman. How it intends to increase its readership in print and online remains to be seen. Perhaps expanded editions are planned to try reaching Zaman’s Turkish readers, eager for real news and information. Turkey is a fascist police state, Erdogan a megalomaniacal international outlaw, a valued US ally – partnering in Washington’s high crimes. [/su_spoiler]

Freedom of the press in Turkey

Turkey ranks 149th among the 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index 2015
Media organisations in Turkey say that more than 30 journalists are currently behind bars; most are of Kurdish origin
The government argues journalism in Turkey is among the most free in the worldBELOW, EXCERPTS OF BBC COVERAGE. The transgression —using a heavy hand not on a small dissident group but a large media conglomerate, is apparently too big for the Western propaganda machine to ignore.[su_spoiler title=”TURKEY’S GOVERNMENT TAKES OVER THE COUNTRY’S MAIN PAPER. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE” style=”fancy” icon=”arrow-circle-1″] ‘Disgrace’

EXCERPTS FROM A BBC REPORT: The chairman of Samanyolu TV, which also has links to Mr Gulen, was detained in a separate raid in Istanbul. Hidayet Karaca told reporters the operation was “a disgrace for Turkey” before his arrest. “Sadly in 21st Century Turkey this is the treatment they dish out to a media group with tens of television and radio stations, internet media and magazines,” the English edition of Zaman quoted him as saying.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition party, called the raids “a coup”. Staff at Zaman had been expecting the raid after details of the swoop were leaked by a Twitter user known as Fuat Avni, who has previously leaked advance details of police operations. The police operation comes a year after corruption allegations against allies of Mr Erdogan emerged. He said it was a plot orchestrated by Mr Gulen supporters to topple him. Mr Gulen denied this. He has lived in self-imposed exile in the US since 1999.

On Friday Mr Edogan vowed to pursue Gulen supporters “in their lairs”. Grey line Hizmet movement Hizmet (“Service”) is the Turkish name for what is commonly known as the Gulen movement The movement is inspired by the teachings of Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, who lives in exile in the US. Mr Gulen is a mainstream Sunni Hanafi Muslim scholar, influenced by Anatolian Sufism. There is no formal structure but Hizmet followers are numbered in the millions, spread across more than 150 countries. Hizmet first expanded into Central Asia after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. [/su_spoiler]

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