Something very unusual, if not unprecedented, happened in Istanbul March 4. A group of policemen marched to Zaman, Turkey's largest-circulation daily newspaper, with a court order to seize it. They dispersed the hundreds of protesters waiting for them in front of Zaman's offices with tear gas, forced themselves into the building and took control of the newsroom. Soon, Editor-in-Chief Abdulhamid Bilici learned that he was fired. The newspaper's website went offline. Meanwhile, Zaman's 27 years of digital archives — including all of its news stories, editorials and op-eds — were erased. A whole newspaper was destroyed.

The destruction made room for a new creation. A day after the police took full control, Zaman, which had lately become very outspoken against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his rule, found itself with an opposite political line under a trustee appointed by the government to manage the paper. It now praises Erdogan and his glorious "New Turkey." In other words, it became one of dozens of other Turkish newspapers whose sole mission is to support the powerful president and intimidate his foes.

This news may have shocked outsiders, but in Turkey, hardly anyone was surprised. It was clear that Zaman and its entire media group, including Cihan News Agency, would be seized, as Ipek Media Group, which published the dailies Bugun and Millet, was seized last October and turned pro-Erdogan overnight. All these news outlets were affiliated with the movement of Fethullah Gulen, and the Turkish public is repeatedly told that every asset of his religious community will be confiscated by the state.

Who circulated this news? The regime's own propaganda machine did, in particular a columnist in the pro-Erdogan daily Star who had recently become quite famous (or notorious) in Turkey as the mouthpiece of the new national security establishment. Cem Kucuk had written repeatedly (and joyfully) about the impending Zaman takeover.