Zaman, Turkey’s largest newspaper, Zaman, was seized by the authorities in a violent takeover [1] this weekend.
Police raided Zaman’s Istanbul offices hours after a court ruling placed it under state control, but editors managed to squeeze their final edition into press. As police prepared water cannons and arms for the raid, the English-language version of the paper defiantly published a matte black cover with the words “Shameful Day For Free Press in Turkey.”
Saturday’s Turkish edition reported the nation’s media was suffering “one of the darkest days in its history.”
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Zaman editor-in-chief Abdulhamit Bilici and a leading columnist were fired.
Several people were wounded as police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse some 500 Zaman supporters gathered in front of the headquarters, chanting “Free press cannot be silenced!”
Journalists who returned to work on Sunday, when the paper published a front page lauding President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, tweeted that they lost access to internal servers and were not able to file articles or use their email accounts. Abdullah Bozturk, a reporter, said authorities were trying to wipe out the newspaper’s entire online archive.
The BBC reported that the European Union’s (EU) response consisted of “weak statements of concern” in the midst of an urgent crisis as the EU depends on Turkey’s support in managing the refugee crisis resulting from the Syrian civil war.