Police officers raid Turkish daily’s building only to leave immediately

Police officers on Sunday raided Turkey’s largest circulating newspaper Zaman’s headquarters in İstanbul but had to leave premises due to a lack of signature on warrant witnesses told. Following a long quarrel with barristers to achieve permission to step into the building, police officer left to come back with a new warrant.

Although it is weekend, many of the Zaman workers have spent the night at the building and readers of the daily outside of the campus. Supporters of media freedom shouted "Free media can not be silenced." while police officers were present at the office.

Whistleblower Exposes Operation to detain Journalists

A Twitter user known by the pseudonym Fuat Avni, who has revealed many government-backed police operations to the public, said on Saturday night that the raids, which were originally planned to take place early on Friday morning but were postponed after he revealed the secret plans, will be carried out beginning on Sunday.

The whistleblower tweeted that due to strong reactions to the initial operation planned to be carried out on Friday, the police limited the list of journalists to be detained. He said liberal and main stream journalists will not be targeted "for now."

Published on Cihan, 14 December 2014, Sunday