Turkey targets Dogan Media group

Turkish prosecutors have launched an investigation into Dogan Media Group for alleged "terrorism propaganda", authorities said on Tuesday, a move likely to deepen concern about media freedom to criticise government policy.

The investigation comes just days after offices of one Dogan newspaper, the mass circulation Hurriyet, was attacked by pro-government mobs who accused it of sympathising with the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) insurgent group.

Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin confirmed the investigation into Dogan but declined to give any details.

Turkey’s Anadolu Agency said the inquiry was launched on a complaint from a pro-government newspaper, which cited the publication of uncensored photographs of dead Turkish soldiers and an interview with someone who later joined the PKK.

President Tayyip Erdogan's efforts to settle a PKK insurgency in southeastern Turkey by a truce and talks all but collapsed in July with a resurgence of fighting. Hundreds of soldiers have been killed as have thousands from the ranks of the PKK, which the United States and European Union as well as Turkey deem a terrorist group.

Anadolu said the complaint also cited the publication of a photograph of leftist militants holding a gun to the head of a prosecutor in a deadly hostage stand-off earlier this year.

No one was immediately available for comment at Dogan. One group newspaper, Radikal, said on its website, in reference to an article in the pro-government daily Gunes: “They took a story full of lies seriously and started an investigation.”

Erdogan reviles Dogan Media

Such a government backlash over criticism of its policies, as well as Mr Erdogan's frequent battles with the media, have helped to drive Nato member Turkey towards the bottom of global press freedom rankings.

Scores of people have been investigated on accusations of insulting Mr Erdogan, who remains Turkey's most popular politician but has become increasingly intolerant of criticism over more than a decade in power.

On Monday, police raided the offices of an unrelated political magazine over a mocked-up cover picture of Mr Erdogan on charges it insulted the president and spread terrorist propaganda.

Dogan Media and its listed parent, Dogan Holding, are no strangers to Mr Erdogan's ire.

In May, Dogan was suspended from state tenders after Mr Erdogan accused its head, Aydin Dogan, of being a "coup lover" and described its media columnists as "charlatans".

In 2009 Dogan Media was fined $2.5 billion for unpaid taxes, in what many critics saw as an attempt to crush media criticism of Mr Erdogan, following its coverage of corruption allegations against figures close to Mr Erdogan.

Following the tax bill, founder Dogan was forced to sell the group's Milliyet and Vatan newspapers, the Star TV channel and other holdings.

Reuters