September 2015 in Turkey will be remembered as a month in which suppression of press freedom reached an unprecedented level in almost all realms and attacks on journalists escalated.

The month began with a police raid on the offices of the Bugun newspaper and its sister TV channel as part of a judicial probe into the Gulen movement, the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) former ally that now stands accused of being a terrorist group. The two media outlets are owned by Koza Ipek Holding, a business group close to the movement of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, which the authorities now call the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETO). Koza Ipek is accused of financing FETO, a term first used in July in an indictment drawn up by the chief prosecutor’s office in Konya.

The Sept. 1 raids on the Bugun outlets were followed by a string of incidents that made September a truly black month for press freedom in Turkey. Frenzied AKP supporters attacked media offices, pro-government columnists issued death threats to critical journalists, scores of journalists were charged for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, dozens of Kurdish media websites were gagged and newspapers faced probes for spreading terrorist propaganda.

The Dogan Media Group, the most influential member of the mainstream media, has emerged as the primary target of the pressure Turkish journalism and journalists are facing in the runup to the Nov. 1 snap polls, called after the AKP lost its parliamentary majority in the June 7 elections after 13 years in power.