They printed my picture on the front page of theAkit newspaper. Here is the headline: ‘They said Erdoğan would flee but it was them who fled.’ I would like to ask the Akit,which runs a promotion sending its readers on pilgrimage to Mecca every year:

Is telling lies and slandering people, and doing this through the media, allowed in your faith?

Up until today, Bugün newspaper has printed 80 thousand pages of news, Kanaltürk has broadcast 70 thousand hours of news,Bugün TV has broadcast 50 thousand hours and our websites have published millions of news items, Kanaltürk Radio, Millet, you can find it all recorded in the archives.

Show me a single line that is even slightly disrespectful to Erdoğan or his family, About any minister, any government official, any citizen. Show me a single lie, a single slander, a single mistake that has not been corrected;show me a single person who hasn’t been allowed to give his or her answer to an article printed in our newspapers, ora journalist who is denied freedom of expression and is told what he or she can or can’t write. They talk about a ‘secret tape’ or whatever.
If there is one show it to me. There will be records in ‘RUTUK’ (the supreme council of radio and TV broadcasting) and in ‘BIAK’ (the Press Research Committee). Either your news is true and you will prove that it is or you will say lying is allowed according to Akit.

And we will say,

You have your religion and we have ours.

And finally, as soon as we say anything, all this nonsense about plots and so on starts up again. Of course the media will make news, my friend. And that’s nobody’s business so long as they keep within the bounds of media ethics. As a media proprietor did I not tell them that my door is open to everyone and they shouldn’t exclude us?Did I not send the president of my media group to all political parties and did I not personally write a letter to Ilker Basbuğ Pasha? I explained all this on Kanaltürk and Bugün TV.

It’s up to them to decide to come or not to come and to exclude who they like.