Turkey's biggest selling newspaper is expected to be charged with terrorism offences, reports The Times, following a raid on its offices on Friday.
Speaking to The Times, Zaman's chief columnist Bulent Kenes said he expects to be detained under terrorism offences “in the coming days”. “It is a matter of when, not if,” he said.
His comments come following the Turkish government ordering armed police to raid the offices of Zaman on Friday. “We are going through the darkest and gloomiest days in terms of freedom of the press, which is a major benchmark for democracy and rule of law,” read a statement in Zaman's English-language sister paper. “Intellectuals, businesspeople, celebrities, civil society organisations, media organisations and journalists are being silenced via threats and blackmail.”
Though members of the European Union reportedly raised the issue on both public and private, the Kurdish leader of the HDP criticised Western countries for not speaking up on the issue and on the Turkish war on Kurds in the southeast, for fear of jeopardising a hotly debated agreement on refugees.
The Committee to Protect Journalists executive director Joel Simon criticised the crackdown, stating that “rather than taking aggressive action to undermine the newspapers, Turkish authorities should be fulfilling their constitutional obligation to defend press freedom and the rights of journalists”.
“By lashing out and seeking to rein in critical voices, President Erdogan's government is steamrolling over human rights,” added Andrew Gardner of Amnesty International.
The latest move by Turkey comes as fighting with Kurdish separatists continues and anti-terrorism legislation was been widely deployed against government critics, including 1,200 academics who called for an end to violence in the southeast and a university professor who set an exam question on PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.
See more from The Times here.