New raid on media adds to political confusion in Turkey

Turkish police raided the Zaman media group headquarters in Istanbul on Dec. 14, as part of an operation anticipated for the last few days.

Soon after, Hidayet Karaca, the head of the group’s main TV channel, “Samanyolu,” was taken into custody, along with the script writer and director of a TV drama series that it broadcasts. Following that, the Istanbul police took Ekrem Dumanlı, the editor-in-chief of daily Zaman, into custody, broadcast live on TVs as thousands of people gathered around the Zaman building to protest against the operation.

The semi-official Anadolu Agency reported that the detentions were within the framework of a probe about allegedly fabricated evidence against a radical Islamist group reportedly critical of the teachings of Fethullah Gülen, a moderate Islamist scholar living in the U.S. who has a network of sympathizers both inside Turkey and abroad.

 The operation has triggered protests by journalists, media institutions and political parties, with the opposition saying it was yet another move by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) against the freedom of the media and free speech in Turkey. 

Both Karaca and Dumanlı are names close to Gülen,  who used to be a close ally of Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan until their interests  started to conflict from 2012 onward. Initially the conflict flared over the control of private schools run by Gülen, and then an interrogation attempt against the head of the National Intelligence Agency (MÄ°T), but the final stage came after the opening of the biggest corruption probe in Turkey’s history on Dec. 17, 2013, followed by a second probe on Dec. 25. 

Erdoğan, who was still the prime minister at the time, claimed that Gülenists...