Thousands keep ‘Justice Watch’ for journalists in İstanbul

On Thursday "Fuat Avni," a whistleblower who says he is among President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's inner circle, claimed that the dozens of journalists will be detained in simultaneous police raids to be conducted in İstanbul, Ankara and Malatya on Friday.

Upon that journalists went to the Çağlayan Courthouse in İstanbul on Friday to ask İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor Hadi Salihoğlu whether any investigation was underway against them.

While journalists were inside the courthouse, thousands of people from across İstanbul gathered in front of the courthouse to express support for journalists and keep “Justice Watch” despite the cold weather and rain.

People opened banners in front of the courthouse which read, “You cannot make us silent via silencing media”, “Don’t just be afraid, tremble!”, “Operation against journalists, on the anniversary of corruption probe” and “the money zeroed at home cannot be forget”.

Twitter user Avni wrote on Thursday that a total of 400 people, including 147 journalists working at the newspapers close to the Hizmet movement -- inspired by the teachings of Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen -- will be detained as part of the operation. Avni said the operation is an act of revenge for last year's major corruption and bribery scandal that implicated many state officials and pro-government businessmen.

Twitter user Fuat Avni has revealed many government-backed police operations to the public in the past.

Published on BGNNews, 13 December 2014, Saturday