CHP applies to visit chief of Samanyolu media group

Zeynep Gürcanlı ANKARA

A group of CHP deputies has applied to the Ministry of Justice to visit the CEO of the Samanyolu Media Group under the leadership of Sezgin Tanrıkulu.

A group of main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputies, under the leadership of CHP deputy chairman Sezgin Tanrıkulu, has applied to the Justice Ministry to visit Hidayet Karaca, the CEO of the Samanyolu Media Group, on Feb. 9.

Tanrıkulu and deputy for Istanbul Ali Özgündüz have applied to the Justice Ministry to visit Karaca, a member of the Zaman media group, which is affiliated with U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, in Turkey’s northwestern district of Silivri on Feb. 9, after CHP groups had previously paid visits to suspects of the Balyoz (Sledgehammer) and Ergenekon coup plot cases. 

While the daily was going to press, the decision on permission for the visit had not yet been given. 
Talking to daily Hürriyet, Tanrıkulu said they were assessing this visit through a human rights perspective. 

“We approach [everyone in jail] independent of their political thoughts, beliefs, identities and the organization they were imputed on,” Tanrıkulu said, adding they look to see if those people’s rights had been violated or not. 

Tanrıkulu said it would be very wrong to draw a political meaning from this meeting and human rights were a common topic for them. 

Hidayet Karaca was arrested after an operation on Dec. 14, 2014, against media outlets close to the Gülen Movement.

An Istanbul court ordered on Dec. 19 the arrest of four of the 12 suspects, including Karaca and Tufan Ergüder, the former head of the Istanbul Police Department’s anti-terror branch, who were detained in a Dec. 14 police operation on media groups linked to Gülen.

Eight suspects, including daily Zaman Editor-in-Chief Ekrem Dumanlı, have been released.