Turkey detains editor of oppn newspaper Cumhuriyet
1 Nov 2016 10:17 PM GMT
The Turkish police has detained the editor-in-chief of the opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet, state media reported on Monday, while the daily said several of its writers were taken into police custody.
Murat Sabuncu was detained, while authorities searched for executive board chairman Akin Atalay and writer Guray Oz, the official news agency Anadolu said.
The daily said Oz had in fact already been detained, along with other journalists from the paper – including Aydin Engin, Hikmet Cetinkaya and Hakan Kara.
According to CNN Turk, 13 arrest warrants were issued against journalists and executives from the newspaper. The police were searching the homes of Atalay and Oz, Anadolu said, but Atalay is believed to be abroad, CNN Turk reported.
Cumhuriyet said the home of cartoonist Musa Kart was also being searched.
The latest detentions come as authorities pressed a massive crackdown over a failed July bid by a rogue faction of the military to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkey has been under a state of emergency since the July 15 failed coup.
Tens of thousands of civil servants have been suspended, fired or detained, with the government pointing the finger of blame for the coup bid at exiled Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen.
The government has also shut more than 100 media outlets and detained dozens of journalists as it presses a purge that has come under fire by Western leaders and human rights organisations.
Diyarbakir mayors to be detained on ‘terror’ links
A Turkish court has ordered the detention of the two mayors of Diyarbakir, the largest city in the predominantly Kurdish southeast of the country, accusing them of “terrorist” activities linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Gultan Kisanak and Firat Anli, jointly elected in 2014, were yesterday accused of “belonging to an armed terrorist organisation” and providing “logistical support to an armed terrorist organisation”, according to a statement by the court in Diyarbakir.
Their detention comes five days after they were taken into police custody.
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