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An Istanbul court has decreed this Thursday the intervention of the Can Holding business conglomerate, owner of four important television channels that are transferred to the control of the Government, within a process against its directors for alleged financial irregularities.
The court decided to transfer the financial control of the 121 companies owned by Can Holding to the public investment fund TMSF, which depends on the office of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as reported by the same organization in a statement today.
For the time being, the activity of these companies continues unchanged, the TMSF underlined, and TV channels continue to broadcast.
The television stations intervened are Habertürk, which also maintains a popular and prestigious digital newspaper of the same name; Bloomberg-HT, the most important financial information broadcaster and portal in Turkey, participated by the American agency Bloomberg; Show TV, a popular soap opera channel; and the sports broadcaster HT Spor.
Habertürk is one of the few Turkish media outlets with an image of independence and coverage distinct from the pro-government press bloc, which represents almost 90 percent of the Turkish media landscape, according to estimates by Reporters Without Borders.
Can Holding acquired this media group last December from another Turkish conglomerate, Çiner Holding, in a commercial operation that was described as friendly, without any changes being recorded in the editorial line of these media outlets.
The Prosecutor's Office accuses Can Holding of operating as "a criminal organization", with "clandestine" financial practices, "fraud" and "money laundering", moving funds of unknown origin between its companies, according to the Turkish agency Anadolu.
Furthermore, arrest warrants have been issued for ten executives of the conglomerate, four of whom were arrested early this morning.
