Turkey’s Assault on the Press: Largest Newspaper in Country Seized by Erdogan Government

Photo via Al Jazeera

Last weekend, chaos erupted in Turkey as the government took control of the nation’s largest newspaper in a worrisome leap toward limiting free speech. A court ordered the seizure of the paper and the appointment of trustees of the government to run the paper, called Zaman.

Zaman was connected to U.S. cleric Fethullah Gulen, an individual who was once an ally of the Tayyip Erdogan government but now frequently speaks out against it. The paper was accused of plotting a coup against the government and disseminating misinformation about the government’s actions. Prominent voices in the Turkish media relay that they are going through “the darkest and gloomiest days in terms of freedom of the press,” per The Guardian.

Despite their opposition to the Turkish government and their outspoken criticism of Erdogan, the Turkish court did not provide legal reasoning for the seizure. Authorities arrived at the headquarters, removed the editor and chief and seized control of the build-ing. The paper, however, was able to print their Saturday edition as scheduled, with a stark headline reading, “The Constitution is Suspended…Yesterday marked one of the darkest days in the history of Turkish press,” according to Al Jazeera.

Since the government took over the paper, the headlines and stories are pro-government and anti-inflammatory. The website was offline, but according to Al Jazeera, a message on the site said the paper would be providing more objective and better coverage soon. The government is trying to delete the online archives of the paper and has replaced all of the top staff members with pro-government trustees; however, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that the seizure was “not political” and merely a legal procedure.

After the court ruling on Friday, more than 500 protestors gathered and protested the seizure. Per the Guardian, the police used tear gas, rubber bullets and other crowd control methods to disperse the protestors. Human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and others have come out strongly against the seizure and the treatment of protestors. The government refutes this, and has said that Turkey has some of the freest journalism standards in the world and that it does not discourage freedom of speech. They rank 149 out of 180 in the 2015s World Press Freedom Index, per BBC. BBC also reports that more than 30 journalists, mostly Kurds, are being held on charges by the Erdogan government.

Other criticisms have been directed at the European Union, which has remained rather quiet considering the implications of the government’s actions. Many suspect they do not want to anger Turkey, as they need their help with the migrant crisis, according to The Guardian. Although the EU said that Turkey “needs to respect and promote high democratic standards” they have not gone beyond that “slap on the wrist” in trying to rectify the problem. The U.S. was only willing to say that the move was “troubling.”

For Erdogan, this is the latest in a string of incidents with journalists whom he has accused of terrorist activity. Just two weeks ago, the Editor in Chief of a different opposition newspaper called Cumhuriyet was re-leased from prison after he was charged with terrorism for publishing an article on Turkish arms shipments to Syrian Islamic groups, per The Guardian.

This latest incident will not help Erdogan’s international image as a suppressor of free speech but it does give him a tool to disseminate pro government information to Za-man’s readers, whom number more than 650,000.