IT is no secret that my name appears on the list of journalists Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to see behind bars, and I won’t hide my own expectations that he will suffer that end. So, despite my intrinsic optimism about the future of my country’s democracy, I am writing this article in pre-emptive exile, self-imposed so as to avoid imprisonment.

The fact that I personally, and my media group, publisher of Zaman, Turkey’s largest circulating daily until last week, gave full support to President Erdogan’s political line between 2004 and 2011 further complicates my position. I have been trying to de-convince the same foreign journalists, academics and policymakers I once skilfully convinced that Erdogan was the kind of leader we all longed for, one who would oversee the establishment of a working democracy that synthesised a deeply religious society with a firmly established secular regime.

When the so-called Arab Spring started, I had claimed that there was only one spring in the region — that of Turkey under Erdogan. Now, I face a single, difficult question: what went wrong?

It all started in the early 2000s when Star Media Group, already appropriated by the state’s Savings Deposit and Insurance Fund (TMSF) due to bankruptcy and financial fraud, was sold to Ethem Sancak, a businessman with close ties to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. The acquisition of the Sabah-ATV group followed the same tactic. The TMSF took over the group in 2007 due to bankruptcy; the group was sold to Çalik Holding for $1.1 billion, almost all the money being arranged by personal involvement of the then-prime minister Erdogan, mobilising state-run banks and Qatari funds.

The Turkish media has realised that the worst is yet to come.

In 2013, the group was sold, this time to Kalyon Group. In late 2013, the largest graft investigation in Turkish history suggested why the Kalyon Group, never previously involved in the media, was interested in paying hundreds of millions of dollars for an unprofitable investment: it had all been set up by Erdogan’s government — or at least so the prosecutors claimed.

As Turkey’s media outlets became converted into pro-government mouthpieces, the government adopted other strategies to trivialise opposition media and silence opposition voices. The Dogan Media group was cowed by a series of tax fines that amounted to $3bn; the group reached an agreement with the government by paying a portion of the fines and selling its Milliyet and Vatan dailies to a government-friendly businessman.

Meanwhile, the favour of the Ciner Media group was bought through juicy private-public projects, and its loyalty guaranteed by a party commissar appointed to flagship Haberturk TV. Dogus Group’s NTV followed suit. In all cases, such takeovers precipitated a wave of redundancies, as journalists unwilling to toe the party line found themselves personae non grata.

Uncooperative media groups were punished by other means. Opposition TV channels were taken off air through blocks on satellite, cable and digital platforms (all controlled by the government, directly or indirectly). Their correspondents were denied accreditation at press conferences.

All these factors led to around 1,500 opposition journalists finding themselves out of work by the end of 2015, with the majority of them the subject of one or more court cases on claims of defamation of the president, or spying for a foreign country.

In late 2015, the government tried a new approach. A few days before the Nov 1 elections, the opposition Ipek Media Group was literally taken over, along with its owner Ipek Holding — together worth some $10bn — over claims that the group was aiding a terrorist organisation. Overnight, the group’s Bugun TV and Bugun daily were converted into pro-government media organs.

The same mechanism was employed in the takeover of the Zaman Media Group, home to the Zaman and Today’s Zaman dailies, Aksiyon weekly and Cihan News Agency, and owner of Turkey’s sole media distribution company, recently. The group employs over 700 journalists and about 3,000 delivery operatives. The takeover will have repercussions for other opposition media organs, which used to rely on Cihan News Agency for content and Cihan Media Distribution Company for distribution. The future of the international editions of Zaman, published on a franchising agreement with the parent group, is also uncertain.

While many people abroad still think of Erdogan as the kind of powerful Muslim leader the Muslim world yearned for, the Turkish media has already started to realise that the worst is yet to come. I, on the other hand, will continue to fight for the future of Turkish democracy, trying to raise awareness in the world that every dictator is bad, but a religious dictator is worse, as he corrupts not only politics, but also religion.

The writer is editor-in-chief of Turkish Review and was a columnist for Zaman and Today’s Zaman.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2016