Turkey has detained the editor-in-chief of the country’s leading opposition newspaper and issued arrest warrants for at least 13 other journalists and executives in a continued crackdown on free speech that followed a failed coup earlier this year.
State media reported Monday that Cumhuriyet editor Murat Sabuncu was detained while Turkish police searched for the newspaper’s executive board chairman Akin Atalay and writer Guray Oz. The government reportedly launched the operation against the daily for alleged “activities” on behalf of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, whom Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has blamed for the coup attempt, and the outlawed leftist group Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), based in Turkey and Iraq. Authorities also shuttered an additional 15 media outlets.
In the wake of the failed July coup that sought to oust Erdoğan from power, the government arrested thousands of people, shuttered at least 131 media outlets, and fired tens of thousands of public servants. Dozens of journalists fled, while human rights watchdogs alleged torture of detained dissidents.
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