Opposition claims Erdogan may be media owner
Leaked investigation documents suggest Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan may have an ownership interest in media companies.
A massive corruption probe has been rattling Turkey since Dec. 17 when prosecutors moved to make the first arrests. By now, the government has dismissed all the prosecutors who initiated the probe, along with all police officers who did the investigating. Hundreds of other prosecutors and judges and thousands of police have lost their original posts in a nationwide reshuffle. Laws and regulations have been amended. A media blackout has been imposed on the probe. The justice minister has sent back prosecution reports incriminating ministers, instead of passing them to parliament for further action. In short, the probe has been blocked.
Yet, documents from the investigation files continue to leak out. Wiretaps end up in the media on a daily basis. Opposition leaders have laid hands on the prosecution reports the justice minister returned, trumpeting their content from parliamentary rostrums.
Among other revelations, the leaked documents have provided a striking illustration of how censorship works in Turkey and raised alarm that the problem of media ownership is far more serious than it was thought.
The wiretaps from the investigation files are being posted online by a group using the nickname “Haramzadeler” or “Illegitimate offspring.” Each time its posts are blocked, it moves to a new web address and continues publishing the corruption “archive.”
