Arrest Warrant for Turkish Football Legend Hakan Sukur

[Colwyn]

Well if I look at today's news and the list of most popular recent articles I find detailed reporting of senior AKP leaders criticizing RTE's plan for retrospective death sentence law, a review saying Turkish courts are not independent and impartial, an article on constitutional discussions saying the HDP should not have been excluded, and reports of "outrage" at the court decision to overturn the law against child sexual abuse (since 12 to 15 year-olds are capable of giving their consent to sex. I haven't read through all the other stories but this sort of thing has been enough to raise Erdogan's wrath in the past. Perhaps this the new post-coup consiliatory President?

[kevin3]

  When the wee man gets rid of his backlog of dissenters the HDN will be on the next list.State run TV & Newspapers will be the order of the day.

  His intention to explore the purchase of a new Missile Defence System from his new buddy Putin will please Nato and the West.

  It also looks as though he is getting rid of HDP's Demirtas.

[JohnF]

According to the Turkish Daily News

I wonder how much longer TDN is going to be permitted to circulate its "anti-Turkish propaganda"?

For quite some time I hope. 

The HDN has a big "feck off " factor - it's owned by Doğan Holdings, who are one of the largest industrial conglomerates in Turkey, and the named publisher of HDN (and other group publications) is Vuslat Doğan Sabancı. 

She is a Doğan, who married into the Sabancı family - and Sabancı family's little business, Sabancı Holdings turns over somewhere in the region of 5,000 billion lira a year.

Both are still family owned businesses and have been on the go for many years and seen governments come and go, coups, 1,000% inflation etc, etc. 

The wee fella would need far bigger balls than he may think he has to go after those two families.  He tried it with Koç Holdings after Gezi (protesters treated in the Koç owned Pera Hotel) and ultimately that didn't end well for him.

But hey, its Turkey under a state of emergency so who knows whats round the corner.

JF

[JohnF]

...and round the corner is now an attack on Doğan Holdings.

As I said before, I don't think the government has the balls to go after DH themselves - too much to lose given the shaky state of the economy.  Instead, we have the editor of the pro government Daily Akşam, Murat Kelkitlioğlu making allegations against DH's top guy in Ankara, Barbaros Muratoğlu.  Needless to say, Mr Muratoğlu is now enjoying bed and breakfast within an Ankara jail while the allegations of being involved in a "terror organisation" are investigated.

On the basis that another 191 judges and prosecutors were suspended yesterday, he may end up in front of a couple of janitors and a loyal simit seller.

Links: HDN  Sabah

JF