Attacks mount on the free Turkish press

Ahmet Hakan Co?kun, one of Turkey?s most influential columnists and TV commentators, was severely beaten by four people in front of his house in Istanbul on Oct. 1, right after completing his debate show, ?The Neutral Zone,? on CNNTürk. The attackers have been detained by the police, with at least one of them an infamous Twitter personality who trolls users who are critical of the government. It appears that they were using a hired car and chased Co?kun from the CNNTürk building to his house for over 20 kilometers.

Both CNNTürk and daily Hürriyet, which Ahmet Hakan Co?kun writes for, are part of the Do?an Media Group, like the Hürriyet Daily News that you are reading right now. The attack of Co?kun was the third physical attack on Hürriyet in the past month ? all of which came following remarks against the media group, either by President Tayyip Erdo?an or by the Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) government of Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu, which is not evidence itself that the attacks were inspired by them but nevertheless presents a pattern.

The leading figure in the first attack on Sept. 6 was an AK Parti member of parliament, Abdurrahim Boynukal?n, who is also the head of the party?s youth branch. The second on Sept. 8 was led by a group calling themselves ?The Ottoman Hearths,? whose ties were later denied by the AK Parti. 

In both attacks, damage was caused to the Hürriyet?s Istanbul headquarters, a compound which is also shared by CNNTürk. After the second attack, a video recording hit the web showing Boynukal?n making brutal jokes to a group of friends saying they had actually done wrong by not intimidating the likes of Ahmet Hakan Co?kun and Sedat Ergin (the editor-in-chief of Hürriyet) by beating them up, adding that he...