Turkiye: court installs trustees at Zaman newspaper

An Istanbul court put Turkiye's best-selling newspaper, Zaman, and its parent company under trustees after ruling it supported a group the government called a terrorist organization. Police used tear gas on a crowd that gathered in support.¹²³⁴

Country

Türkiye (RSF 2026 rank: 163rd of 180)

Where

Türkiye

Level of government

National

Tactic

Funding and ownership pressure

Stage

Silence (see the ladder)

Ladder note

A court replaced a newspaper's board and editors with trustees days after a hearing without the company's lawyers present; United States funding pressure has not removed an outlet's management by court order.

Head of government at the time

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Issue of the day

Not stated in the sources reviewed.

Outcome

Sustained, March 4, 2016. Editorial control was not restored to the original owners; the outlets were later shut down entirely under a separate July 2016 decree.

Era

The 2010s

What happened

On March 4, 2016, an Istanbul court ruled that Feza Media Group, publisher of the newspapers Zaman and Today's Zaman and the Cihan news agency, supported a movement led by the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen that Turkiye's government had labeled a terrorist organization. The court ordered the company placed under court-appointed trustees, who took control of its board, servers and archives and blocked existing journalists' access to their own systems. Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse a crowd that had gathered outside Zaman's Istanbul office in support of the paper. Within days, the new management removed critical stories from the paper's history and installed an editorial line supportive of the government; the paper's foreign editor and other senior staff were dismissed. Today's Zaman continued for several more months before all Feza-linked outlets were permanently closed by a state-of-emergency decree following the failed coup attempt of July 2016.¹²³⁴

Sustained until the outlets were later closed entirely by decree in July 2016.¹²³⁴

What reason was given

"the new administration does not want any stories that were 'critical of Turkey'"¹²³⁴

What changed for reporting

Journalists said the paper reversed its editorial line within days and that the takeover was part of a broader effort described by one ousted editor as aimed at every independent voice, not only Zaman.¹²

Timeline

Who acted

Outlets and journalists

Sources

• 'Erdogan is killing journalism,' says Today's Zaman editor forced out after takeoverCommittee to Protect Journalists, 2016-04-14, reporting. Source record
• CPJ writes to Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu to protest takeover of Feza media groupCommittee to Protect Journalists, 2016-03-08, reporting. Source record
• Zaman daily Editor-in-Chief Bilici, Today's Zaman's Keneş fired by trustees after gov't seizureTurkish Minute, 2016-03-05, reporting. Source record