On Friday, US State Department spokesmen John Kirby called “troubling” the decision by Turkish authorities to seize control of the Zaman Turkey’s most circulated newspaper. He said, “We see this as the latest in a series of troubling judicial and law enforcement actions taken by the Turkish government targeting media outlets and others critical of it.”
Currently, in Turkey ruling single-party government AKP has direct and indirect control almost over all domestic TV, radio channels and news agencies. The few independent ones are subject of severe political and financial pressure. Some of them illegally forced to give de facto control to appointed trustees who are often happened to be the members of affiliates of AKP government. Zaman newspaper is known for its affiliation with the social movement called Hizmet or Fethullah Gulen Movement. AKP targets Zaman and all other interest groups, political parties, and businesses to scare population by publicly punishing independent voices who criticized wrongdoings of the government.