Turkish president Erdoğan and media tycoon Doğan in same shot

The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came together with the media tycoon Aydın Doğan with whom he was in bad since a long time
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (L) and Aydın Doğan (R)
Monday, 19 June 2017 23:01

At a fast-breaking dinner in İstanbul, President Erdoğan was in the same shot, cheerful, with the media tycoon Aydın Doğan with whom he was in bad since a long time.

Erdoğan, referring to the imprisoned journalists, said, at the dinner, that freedoms are not unlimited and “some organisations in the West always come to them chanting journalists are in jail.’” He also said that ‘only two out of 177 people in prison have yellow press cards’ and claimed that ‘one of those 177 is in prison for murder, while the rest are in prison due to their ties to terrorist organisations’

Erdoğan, implying the imprisoned deputy Enis Berberoğlu, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) who has recently been sentenced to 25-year jail due to ‘political or military espionage’, said that ‘Nowhere in the world, diffusing the secrets of State by manipulating them, is journalism.’

Berberoğlu was accused of providing Cumhuriyet newspaper with a video purporting to show Turkey's intelligence agency trucking weapons into Syria. He was a columnist of the daily Hürriyet, which is also owned by the media tycoon Aydın Doğan, until August 2014, when he resigned from the newspaper. Berberoğlu started writing at the daily Sözcü in October 2014.

Barbaros Muratoğlu, a Doğan Holding executive, was remanded in custody on an accusation of ‘aiding a terror group’ as part of an investigation about the U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen sect. Muratoğlu was also charged with ‘aiding an armed terror group FETO’, which refers to "Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation".

ERDOĞAN, DOĞAN AND KOÇ HOLDING

Doğan Holding, the largest media conglomerate of Turkey, incorporates several newspapers, broadcasting and online outlets, television and music production houses, and distribution, retail, printing, and publishing companies. The holding is also in energy, tourism, retail, industry, finance and real estate businesses.

During AKP’s first term in government between 2002-2007, then-Prime Minister Erdoğan had unprecedented support from the Doğan Holding, which became an important beneficiary of AKP’s privatisations. Doğan Media had took over Star TV in 2005, making the Doğan Media Turkey’s dominant media organisation, which has already incorporated the TV channel CNN Turk and Doğan News Agency. The holding, which also has joint ventures with Turner Broadcasting, sold 25 percent of its shares to the German media giant Axel-Springer in 2007.

During the second term of the AKP rule between 2007-2011, conflicts arose between AKP and the Doğan Group and the relations between the holding and the government has been unsteady since then. The relations have been even tenser since the failed coup of July 2016.

Doğan Holding has historical mutual relations with Koç Holding, one of the biggest and rooted capitalist groups in Turkey. During AKP era in Turkey, these groups have somehow been represented as the secular fractions of the Turkish bourgeoisie. These holdings created the illusion of being against the religious reactionism of AKP, however, the latter is one of the most important and direct beneficiaries of the neo-liberal AKP rule and the Islamization of the labour class of Turkey.