Shaming silence as Turkish supremo seizes newspaper

THE European Union was last night under fire for failing to condemn a crackdown on free speech in Turkey which saw the state-enforced takeover of the country’s largest newspaper.

Critics accused Brussels of a ‘cynical silence’ over hard-line President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s clampdown, claiming EU leaders were reluctant to anger Ankara ahead of a crunch summit on the migration crisis.

The court-ordered takeover of Zaman sparked international outrage and was described as one of the ‘darkest days’ in the history of the country’s Press – but EU chiefs largely remained silent.

Today they will desperately try to convince Turkey to do more to curtail the flow of migrants travelling to Europe.

In return for Ankara taking action to stop hundreds of thousands of refugees leaving its western border for Greece, the EU has pledged £2.3billion as well as the easing of visa restrictions on its citizens travelling to Europe. It has also promised to speed up moves to admit Turkey to full EU membership.

In an underwhelming statement, the EU’s diplomatic service said: ‘The EU has repeatedly stressed that Turkey, as an EU candidate country, needs to respect and promote high democratic standards and practices, i ncluding f reedom of the media.’

But neither European Council president Donald Tusk nor European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker intervened to condemn Turkey’s actions.

Only Martin Schulz, European Parliament president, condemned the move on Twitter as ‘yet another blow to press freedom in Turkey’ and said he intended the raise the issue today.

Reporters Without Borders warned the EU on the eve of the Brussels summit not to ‘yield to blackmail regarding migrants’.

Zaman had been sharply critical of President Erdogan before a court ordered the seizure on Friday.