CHP’s Kılıçdaroğlu: Turkey is going through ‘coup process’

Turkey's main opposition leader has leveled criticisms against the authorities for going after journalists, something "unseen in healthy democracies," and condemned the government for spearheading a "coup process"over the operation that started early on Sunday morning against media outlets affiliated with the Hizmet movement.

In his remarks to reporters at the Ankara Esenboğa Airport, Kılıçdaroğlu said: “The process that we are going through now would not happen in a healthy democracy. The process that we are going through is a coup process.”

He expressed support for those targeted in the operation, saying he and his party will stand by those detained in the operation regardless of whoever they are.

“The identity and address of oppressed people shouldn't be requested. Oppression is always oppression. We will always stand by oppressed people. I want everybody to know this. Journalists being detained, newspapers and TV stations being raided early in the morning, this is not a practice that we can accept.”

A group of police officials from the İstanbul Police Anti-terrorism Units arrived at the Zaman daily building in Yenibosna on Sunday morning and tried to enter the building amid slogans by protesters, "free media cannot be silenced."

Samanyolu TV lawyer Fikret Duran said on Sunday morning that the producer of the Tek Türkiye series, Salih Asan, was taken into custody in the central Turkish province of Eskişehir. He stated that police searched the house of Asan and took him for interrogation. The lawyer added that the producer of the Sungurlar series of the same network, Engin Koç, was also detained in a pre-dawn raid in the eastern province of Van.

Published on Sunday's Zaman, 14 December 2014, Sunday