Turkey firm Dogan’s shares fall

An executive of Turkey’s Dogan Holding has been detained in an investigation related to July’s failed coup, state media reported on Thursday, sending the company’s shares tumbling on fears it could be a target in the government’s crackdown.

No one was immediately available at Dogan to comment on reports by state-run Anadolu Agency and other local media that authorities had detained the Ankara representative of one of Turkey’s best-known companies, which has businesses encompassing media, financial services, tourism and energy.

An official at the Istanbul prosecutor’s office, which Anadolu said had issued the detainment order, declined to comment.

Company founder Aydin Dogan has clashed with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in the past and the conglomerate has faced multibillion-dollar tax fines.

Shares in Dogan fell by 8.6 percent to 0.64 lira, the second-biggest decliner on Istanbul’s BIST 100 index, which was down 1.6 percent.

The government has so far detained or dismissed 125,000 people in the police, judiciary and civil service over alleged links to the failed coup. More than 36,000 people have been arrested and 170 newspapers and media outlets shut.

The government says the purges are necessary to root out supporters of Fethullah Gulen, the US-based Muslim cleric it blames for the coup. Turkey’s Western allies, however, have expressed concern that Erdogan is using the failed coup as a pretext to curtail dissent.