“If there is an operation, you will be arrested,” Arslan quoted the columnist as saying. “Some people from the pro-government media are calling journalists from other news outlets and are threatening them; one of those journalists is me,” Arslan continued. He also claimed that the columnist advised him to choose carefully whether he is pro-government or working for the opposition, because he might “have a bad experience.”
Arslan described the incident as “insulting and discomforting,” and said that “there is a slander campaign going against writers and correspondents, whereby a police operation is mentioned, and a warning that they risk being arrested. And it is all being organized by government officials,” Arslan alleged. “Just because it's possible to assert the existence of a gang, it does not follow that 40 innocent people are in the gang.”
Ever since a bribery and corruption scandal erupted on Dec. 17 last year, which resulted in the detention of the sons of some government ministers and certain businessmen close to the government, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan has described the corruption investigation as a “dirty operation” aimed at toppling his government. He says a gang nested within the state -- referring to members of the Hizmet movement -- in collaboration with foreign powers, is behind the operation.