On Wednesday October 28th, only four days before the Turkish parliamentary elections, violent clashes erupted in and around the premises of two private television channels in Istanbul. In the early morning police raided the headquarters of Kanaltürk, and in the afternoon Bugün TV, taking over the control rooms and stopping transmission.
The takeover follows the announcement by Ankara’s prosecutor two days earlier that Koza İpek Holding, owner of Bugün TV and Kanaltürk, had been put under administration. The company is accused of “financing”, “recruiting” and “making propaganda” for the imam Fethullah Gulen, who, though in exile in the United States, runs a network of NGOs, media and companies qualified as “terrorist organizations” by the Turkish authorities.
In total, more than twenty of Koza İpek’s subsidiaries have been placed under state supervision since Monday, October 26th 2015.
Sources : AFP, Le Monde, Euronews
