What makes this statement by the European Union on Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s crackdown on opposition media important is that it comes on the eve of meetings between the EU and Turkey to discuss Ankara's bid to join the pan-European organization. A judge friendly to Erdoğan ordered the arrests of dozens of journalists who reported on the massive corruption scandal last year involving hundreds of police and judicial officials.  Erdoğan made the scandal go away by reassigning most of the accused, with only a few of the officials being prosecuted, and has accused an American imam of being behind the revelations and inciting a coup. Businessweek: Yesterday’s arrests, which included the editor-in-chief of the country’s top-selling daily Zaman and the head of Samanyolu Broadcast Group, came days ahead of the first anniversary of a probe into alleged government corruption which posed the biggest challenge to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s...(Read Full Post)