Less than white?

摘要

Leaders of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development (AK) party like to boast that their acronym means "white" or "clean" in Turkish. No longer so. A succession of corruption allegations is sullying ak's image of probity.rnMuch mud is being flung over a scandal involving a Turkish charity, Deniz Feneri (Lighthouse in Turkish). On September 17th a German court convicted three Turkish men involved in the charity of siphoning off €18.6m ($26m). The money had been raised ostensibly to help needy Muslims, among them Palestinians, Turkish slum-dwellers and refugees in Pakistan. Instead the court found that some funds went to buy real estate in Turkey.rnOpponents of the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, claim that some money was funnelled to Kanal 7, an Istanbul-based television channel with close ties to the government. The court, however, found no evidence of links to ak.rnMr Erdogan has turned his ire on Aydin Dogan, the owner of Turkey's biggest media conglomerate, whose newspapers and television channels have led the way in reporting the Lighthouse scandal. Mr Erdogan claims the media group is stirring up the controversy because ak refused to grant Mr Dogan favours for his other business interests, including a permit to build luxury residences on land around Istanbul's Hilton hotel. The prime minister has denounced Mr Dogan's journalists as "dishonourable" and "lowly sell-outs".