Two more local newspapers in western Turkey were closed down by Turkish government under the autocratic rule of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with the recent state of emergency decree, local news site Haber32 said.
The newspapers, Akdeniz newspaper which is published in the city center of Isparta province and Çınaraltı newspaper which is circulated in Yalvaç district of Isparta, were included on the list of 17 institutions to be closed as part of decree no. 695 issued by the government on Sunday.
The news site reported that one of the partners in the firm that owned the newspapers had been jailed on allegations of being a member of the Gülen movement.
Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by the SCF has showed that 244 journalists and media workers are in jails as of December 26, 2017, most in pre-trial detention languishing in notorious Turkish prisons without even a conviction. Of those in Turkish prisons, 217 are arrested pending trial, only 27 journalists remain convicted and serving time in Turkish prisons. An outstanding detention warrants remain for 139 journalists who live in exile or remain at large in Turkey.
Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down more than 180 media outlets after the controversial coup attempt.
