Turkey arrests journos, Erdogan slams West
Turkey was on Saturday holding 17 journalists on charges of “terror group” membership as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Western critics to “mind your own business” over a relentless crackdown following a failed coup.
But in a goodwill gesture two weeks after the July 15 coup bid, Mr Erdogan also announced he was withdrawing thousands of lawsuits against individuals accused of insulting him.
Turkey has detained more than 18,000 people over the attempted putsch which has been blamed on the USbased preacher Fethullah Gulen — a charge he denies — with the relentless crackdown sparking warnings from Brussels that Ankara’s EU membership bid may be in danger.
Seventeen journalists remanded in custody by an Istanbul court over links to Gulen woke up in jails across the city on Saturday as international concern grows over the targeting of reporters in the wake of the putsch. Twenty- one journalists had appeared before a judge in hearings lasting until midnight on Friday. Four were then freed but 17 were placed under pre- trial arrest, charged with “membership of a terror group”, the state- run Anadolu news agency said.
Those held include the veteran journalist Nazli Ilicak as well as the former correspondent for the proGulen Zaman daily Hanim Busra Erdal.
Among those freed was prominent commentator Bulent Mumay who was given a rapturous welcome by supporters. “I could never have imagined being accused of such a thing. It was a madness. It’s not right to arrest journalists — this country should not make the same mistakes again,” he said, quoted by the Dogan news agency.
Foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu defended the detention of reporters, saying it was necessary to distinguish between coup plotters and those “who are engaged in real journalism”. The President also announced that as a gesture of goodwill after the coup he was dropping hundreds of lawsuits against individuals accused of insulting him. “I am going to withdraw all the cases regarding the disrespectful insults made against me,” said Mr Erdogan.
Earlier this year, officials had said more than 2,000 people were being prosecuted on charges of insulting the President. Thousands of those detained after the coup have now been released, with an Istanbul court releasing 758 soldiers late on Friday, adding to another 3,500 former suspects already set free.
But with concern growing about the sheer numbers rounded- up, EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn said he needed to see “black- andwhite facts about how these people are treated”.