CNN Turk taken off the air by coup soliders

According to Borzou Daragahi, a BuzzFeed reporter in the Middle East, one journalist was shot in the takeover.

A Turkish TV station’s newsroom erupted into chaos Saturday as police and civilians battled soldiers in the aftermath of an attempted military coup.

The television studio of CNN Turk allegedly was taken over by armed members of the country’s military and its anchors forced off the air.

Turkish private broadcaster CNN Turk has halted its live news broadcast as a presenter said soldiers had entered the studio control room. Emre Kizilkaya, an Istanbul-based journalist who works for the Hurriyet Gazetesi, said that soldiers entered the building and have taken some of his colleagues as hostages. The network was left broadcasting an image of an empty studio.

CNN Turk is a joint-venture between Turner Broadcasting – CNN’s parent company – and the Doğan Media Group, a major Turkish media conglomerate. Viewers can hear the sounds of crowds chanting from outside the studio.

Pro-government demonstrators then entered the facility and police intervened, while the CNN Turk employees remaining in the building experienced some “very tense moments”.