ISTANBUL — Turkish police detained the editor and a dozen senior staff from the main secularist opposition newspaper on Monday, a day after 10,000 more civil servants were sacked over suspected links to a failed July coup.
The Istanbul prosecutor’s office said the staff from the Cumhuriyet daily were suspected of committing crimes on behalf of Kurdish militants and the network of Fethullah Gulen, a US-based cleric.
Turkey accuses Gulen of orchestrating the coup attempt, in which he denies any involvement. The prosecutor’s office said the detentions followed an investigation into allegations that the newspaper had published material justifying the events of July 15.
Cumhuriyet said on its website that 12 of its staff had been detained and some had their laptops seized from their homes. Footage showed one writer, Aydin Engin, 75, being ushered by plain clothes police into a hospital for medical checks.
A further 10,000 civil servants were dismissed and 15 more media outlets ordered closed on Sunday over suspected links to Gulen’s network and militant groups. A court also jailed, pending trial, the co-mayors of the largely Kurdish city of Diyarbakir.
The government says the measures are justified by the threat posted to the state by the coup attempt, in which more than 240 people were killed. Erdogan says the crackdown is crucial for “cleansing” the state apparatus of Gulenist influence.
Cumhuriyet’s previous editor Can Dundar was jailed for publishing state secrets.
Cumhuriyet said Dundar, who was freed in February and is now abroad, was one of those facing arrest.
The government this month extended a state of emergency imposed after the coup attempt for three months until mid-January. Erdogan said the authorities needed more time to wipe out the threat posed by Gulen’s network as well as Kurdish PKK militants who have waged a 32-year insurgency.
Ankara wants the United States to detain and extradite Gulen so that he can be prosecuted in Turkey on a charge that he masterminded the attempt to overthrow the government. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, denies any part in it. — Reuters
