Turkey seizes leading paper, tightening grip on press

The day after Turkish police in riot gear seized the country’s leading newspaper, its content changed from critical to complimentary of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Today’s Zaman, circulation 650,000, was taken over Friday at the request of the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, which accused its owners of acting for a political rival that the government accuses of terrorism and attempting a coup.

The seizure prompted protests outside the newspaper building Saturday, until police fired water canons and tear gas to disperse the crowd.

"This is the latest in a series of troubling judicial and law enforcement actions taken by the Turkish government targeting media outlets and others critical of it," the White House said Friday in a statement.

Turkey is a member of NATO and a key ally in the U.S.-led coalition to fight the Islamic State, which holds large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria. Turkey, a jumping off point for Syrian refugees flooding into Europe, is also a founding member of the the Council of Europe and party to the European Convention on Human Rights, which upholds the freedom of the press.

Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland called the seizure "yet another worrying development with regard to press freedom in Turkey." He called on the government to abide by its "legal obligations to protect media freedom."

Fatih Oke, spokesman for the Turkish embassy in Washington, said Monday that freedom of the media "is strongly protected by the Turkish government."

"These measures are in no way related to journalistic pursuits," Oke said.

He said the court-approved takeover of Today's Zaman came as a result of an investigation into attempts to overthrow the government by a group led by a U.S.-based Turkish religious leader, Fethullah Gulen. "This organization used its newspapers and radio channels to pursue its illegal goals," he said.

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Reporters Without Borders accused Erdogan of moving his government "from authoritarianism to all-out despotism."

"Not content with throwing journalists in prison for ‘supporting terrorism’ or having them sentenced to pay heavy fines for ‘insulting the head of state,’ he is now going further by taking control of Turkey’s biggest opposition newspaper,” said Christophe Deloire, secretary general of Reporters Without Borders.

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Turkey has seen “a clear deterioration” of press freedoms in recent months, said Melody Patry, a senior advocacy officer at the Index on Censorship, which promotes freedom of expression around the world. "There is a an attempt to silence not only critics but also information that may not be in favor of the government," Patry said.

Her group has documented hundreds of violations in Turkey, including detentions, deportations and denial of visas for foreign journalists.

In November, authorities arrested the editor in chief and the Ankara bureau chief of Cumhuriet, another leading Turkish newspaper, on charges of spying and divulging state secrets. The two journalists have been released but still face trial over their reports of Turkish arms deliveries to Islamic rebel groups in neighboring Syria.

Oke said the Cumhuriet journalists were charged with publishing a video "that should not be seen by the public" for security reasons. "It was not a journalism issue, it was a homeland security issue," he said.

Turkey has also targeted foreign journalists in the country.

Last month, Turkish authorities rejected a permanent press accreditation application filed by Silje Rønning Kampesæter, a correspondent for Norway’s Aftenposten.

Danish journalist Claus Blok Thomsen, working for the daily Politiken, was detained at the Istanbul airport, where he was barred from entering the country to report on refugees at the Turkish-Syrian border.

In the case of Today’s Zaman, the Istanbul prosecutor accused the newspaper’s owners of acting for Gulen, a past ally of Erdogan. Gulen founded an Islamist movement whose private school graduates hold many elite positions in security and judicial institutions. The prosecutor accused the Gulen movement of being a “terrorist organization,” the newspaper reported Friday.

By Sunday, the newspaper's front page described Erdogan’s plan for a reception to mark International Women’s Day and his visit to the site of a bridge being constructed across the Bosphorus Strait, according to Reuters.

The Sunday paper did not mention the protests or the police response.