Including Dumanlı, Karaca 15 Sent To The Court For Arrest

Including Zaman Editor-in Chief Ekrem Dumanlı and Samanyolu Broadcasting Group Manager Hidayet Karaca 15 people detained as part of the operation, have been sent to the court for arrest.

Last Sunday, Ekrem Dumanlı, editor-in-chief of Zaman, one of the bestselling newspapers in the country, and the head of the STV network, Hidayet Karaca, were detained after a police raid. Along with these two journalists, who are top representatives of the Hizmet movement inspired by the teaching of US-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who has been targeted by the governing Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and accused by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of committing a coup d'état in Turkey, a total of 31 people, including media figures and former police chiefs who carried out operations in various provinces were detained. Human rights organizations and international bodies regard the raid on media groups and figures as a wider crackdown on freedom of speech in Turkey. The Sunday operation came days before the anniversary of a graft probe launched on Dec. 17 last year exposing that the country's then-prime minister Erdoğan and the people close to his inner circles were involved in corruption.

Following the corruption probes of last December, which revealed that Erdoğan and some of his family members may well also be implicated in corruption, four Cabinet ministers left their posts. The Zaman daily and the Samanyolu Media Group are among the rare media outlets in Turkey which have published allegations of corruption in the government following the probes.