Turkey: Opposition Journalists Arrested for ’Plotting Coup’

Local Editor

Two editors of a leftist Turkish magazine were arrested in Istanbul for publishing a controversial cover on the same day 58 opposition journalists were fired and 57 more people arrested on charges of being a "terror group."

"Nokta editor-in-chief Cevheri Guven and managing editor Murat Capan were arrested on charges of attempting to overthrow the government by force," said a tweet from Nokta magazine.

The edition was prepared before the elections that saw Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party [AKP] return to its dominant position in the Turkish parliament. The cover read: "The start of civil war in Turkey." The lead story inside argued that a potential victory for AKP would intensify tensions with the country's Kurdish minority.

An Istanbul court immediately ordered the removal of all copies of the magazine from the newsstands.

In an article published on Nokta's website, Guven insisted that the cover was not meant to be taken literally and doesn't call on anyone to take up arms. He also cast doubt on the motives of the prosecutors. The magazine had been raided in September after featuring a mocking image of President Erdogan posing for a selfie next to the coffin of a soldier who had died fighting Kurds.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team