Turkish authorities halt Halk TV broadcasts and detain 11 in police raid
Turkish police raided the headquarters of the pro-opposition broadcaster Halk TV early Wednesday, halting its live broadcasts, sealing off the building and detaining 11 people, according to the channel and prosecutors. Police acted shortly before 7:00am local time (0400 GMT); both Halk's news channel and its YouTube live streams went offline, and journalists arriving at work said they were locked out of the building where they had worked for years.
Prosecutors said warrants were issued for 17 people as part of an investigation into Halk chairman Cafer Mahiroglu on suspicion of bribery, rigging tenders and money laundering. Companies co-owned or managed by Mahiroglu were seized, and authorities appointed a government trustee to run both those companies and the broadcaster itself. Mahiroglu, who lives abroad and was not among those detained, called the raid a "dark day for Turkey" and said seven of his family members were among the 11 arrested. Four of the remaining wanted individuals are abroad, one is in custody in a correctional facility, and one is still being sought.
The raid came just hours before the defence was to begin its arguments in the sprawling corruption trial of jailed Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and some 400 other defendants, and opposition figures said the timing was no coincidence. Opposition leader Ozgur Ozel, whose Yeni Parti along with the Turkish Journalists' Union condemned the move, said storming a channel "watched by millions" at dawn and appointing a trustee was "something only dictators do," calling the government "weak and cowardly."
The action is the latest in a series of measures against pro-opposition media: it came only two weeks after authorities shut down the website and social media accounts of the digital news outlet T24, citing "LGBT propaganda." Halk TV, which is critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government, has faced repeated sanctions from Turkey's broadcasting regulator and was threatened with closure last year.
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