ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday praised the “clean” legal process against his opponents that has been sharply criticised by the EU and included a warrant for arch-foe Fethullah Gulen as well as a wave of arrests.

The crackdown is seen by opponents as the latest act of authoritarian excess by Erdogan, who in August moved to the post of president after over a decade as prime minister.

But in a speech in Istanbul, Erdogan denied there had been any “lynching” of opponents and said the arrests were linked to a “coup plot” led by Gulen aimed at ousting him from power.

“I have been watching this process closely as president of this country. Everything is lawful and in line with procedure ... a really diligent and clean process is going on at the moment,” Erdogan said in the televised speech.

“The police and judiciary are not repeating the mistakes of the past,” he added.

Erdogan defended the detention of journalists as part of the probe, saying that some were using the profession as a “mask” for other activities.

He argued that the detention of journalists was nothing unusual, referring to the arrests in Britain over the phone-tapping scandal that rocked the tabloid press there.

His comments came a day after an Istanbul court issued an arrest warrant for the US-based Gulen, who Erdogan accuses of running a “parallel state” from his exile in the US state of Pennsylvania. The detention of 30 people last weekend on raids on journalists, scriptwriters and police deemed close to Gulen was sharply criticised by the EU, who in turn aroused Erdogan’s own ire.

A court on Friday also remanded in custody on terrorism charges the head of the pro-Gulen Samanyolu TV, Hidayet Karaca, and three police officers, although the editor-in-chief of the equally pro-Gulen Zaman newspaper Ekrem Dumanli was freed. Seven other suspects were also released pending trial.

“God willing, no one will remember the era of the organisation of the assassins,” Erdogan said, using one of his favoured terms for Gulen’s group.

Dumanli — who is not allowed to leave Turkey and is still set to face trial — returned to his offices at the Zaman newspaper headquarters to a hero’s welcome from hundreds of employees who shouted press freedom slogans, Samanyolu television pictures showed.

It remains doubtful that Washington will show any inclination to extradite Gulen, who has lived in the United States since 1999, to face trial in Turkey.

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2014