In Turkey, police arrest journalists and executives

Turkish police on Sunday arrested senior journalists, media executives and even the scriptwriter for a popular television series on charges of "forming, leading and being a member of an armed terrorist organization,” CNN reported.

The more than two dozen arrests followed another series of police raids on December 17 of last year, in which prominent supporters of the government, including the sons of ministers and the head of a state-owned bank, were interrogated on charges of corruption.

In almost all cases, those year-old charges have been dropped.

The current crop of detentions are people associated with the influential Gulen religious movement and whose followers have an active network of schools and businesses. The government accuses the movement of infiltrating the police and judiciary.

Among those now detained are Ekrem Dumanli, editor-in-chief of Zaman, the country's widest circulating newspaper.

Police arriving at 7.30 a.m. were greeted by scores of protesters shouting "a free media cannot be silenced."

Journalists and Gulen supporters had mounted a vigil after tweets from "Fuatavni" -- a reliable but anonymous source -- had warned of the raid. Police retreated only to reappear in the afternoon when Dumanli gave himself up voluntarily.

Also in custody are Hidayet Karaca, the head of the Gulen-affiliated Samanyolu television, as well as the director, producers and writer of long-running political soap operas that cast aspersions on the government's attempt to broker a deal with Kurdish militants by depicting it as a conspiracy hatched in the corridors of Tehran.