Daily Zaman editor-in-chief resigns over ‘pressure on press, personality’

ISTANBUL

CİHAN photo

Ekrem Dumanlı, editor-in-chief of Daily Zaman, announced his resignation on Oct. 5 due to ‘unlawful pressure on press and his personality.’

“I see that I am unable to perform my duty as an editor-in-chief due to the latest unlawful pressure on press and my personality. I think I have been unable to sufficiently and efficiently contribute to daily Zaman where I have tried to serve since 2001 and my health, too, does not allow this anymore. For that reason, I resign from the editor-in-chief post, which I sincerely tried to maintain as much as I could,” Dumanlı said in a statement issued on the daily’s website.

Abdülhamit Bilici, the general manager of Cihan News Agency, replaced Dumanlı as editor-in-chief.

The daily Zaman administration also announced that Dumanlı would continue writing his columns for the daily.

Dumanlı, along with several journalists including Samayolu TV’s head, Hidayet Karaca, was detained on Dec. 14, 2014, in a police operation on media groups linked to U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.

Eight suspects, including Dumanlı, were released while the court imposed a travel ban on Dumanlı.

The Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in Istanbul’s Bakırköy district launched an investigation Sept. 4 into comments Dumanlı made during a TV program on private broadcaster Kanaltürk on Sept. 1.

He was charged with one count each of allegedly “defaming the Turkish president” and “threatening the Turkish president.”