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Just one day before the first anniversary of my newspaper’s takeover by the Recep Tayyip Erdogan regime in Turkey, I visited the Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico. It was first time I was in a newspaper environment since the takeover. When I entered the building, I realized how much I have missed the smell of ink and paper, the endless rush for deadlines and journalistic debates in a newsroom. I cannot even describe how bad I felt as a journalist of 25 years and as the editor-in-chief of Turkey’s largest newspaper, Zaman, when it was taken over on March 4, 2016. On that day, I lost my career, my job, my newspaper.

Horrific scenes from my last day in the newspaper are still vivid in my memory. Our headquarters was raided by hundreds of riot police using tear gas and water cannons. By midnight, police had kicked me out, along with journalists and their families who came to our support. The next morning, they fired me and appointed someone from a pro-government, jihadist, anti-Semitic paper as the new top editor.

Overnight the paper turned into a mouthpiece for Erdogan. Our digital archives were deleted, making it impossible for researchers to use our vast resources. I cannot even find my articles to prove that I am a journalist in a job application. For our remaining staff, the paper was turned into a concentration camp until most of them were eventually fired. Police were everywhere. Each staff member was assigned a number to enter into the building. Soon reporters had two choices: either cooperate or leave without legal rights. Our sister media outlets Today’s Zaman, Cihan News Agency, Aksiyon and Irmak TV suffered the same consequences.

Of course, all of this did not come from out of the blue. The takeover was preceded by numerous threats and rumors in pro-Erdogan media for almost two years that the ruling AKP government wanted to silence our paper. Erdogan was not happy with our independent and critical voice. Pressure increased step by step to intimidate our newspaper, and in a similar fashion all critical media. It all started with quarreling with and humiliating our reporters who were asking critical questions during press conferences. We were having regular phone calls directly from Erdogan to fire critical reporters and columnists. After a while, Erdogan’s government started denying our reporters access to official press meetings. At the same time, our reporters’ government-issued press accreditation cards were canceled. Despite heavy pressure, we continued to write about huge corruption allegations related to Erdogan’s family and several members of his Cabinet. Then, Erdogan started to ask people to boycott and not to buy the paper in party rallies. He and his surrogates made phone calls to companies not to run advertisements in our paper. We had an influx of tax inspectors. Then, using an increasingly partisan judiciary, hundreds of cases were filed against our journalists and the company. The number of cases against our newspaper went over 1,000, and there have been times when 20 journalists from our paper were in court on the same day. Our former editor-in-chief was detained for seven days with the claim he was the founder of a terrorist organization. The only evidence for the nasty claim was one news story and two columns.

In fact, our newspaper was a strong supporter of democracy, rule of law and Turkey’s European Union membership, and our editorial policy has never condoned terror, be it religiously, ideologically or ethnically driven. But the Erdogan regime struck the final blow by taking over the paper, as with many other critics, using a specially designed court system to accuse us of supporting terrorism.

Ten days after the takeover, I realized that it was impossible for me to live in Turkey because my every step was tracked and my phone conversations were taped. I had to leave my country in the middle of the night with only my jacket. Luckily, there was no restriction on my passport, which became routine after awhile. Currently, there is an arrest warrant against me, and I am in exile in America trying to start my life over, from scratch. Nearly 200 of my fellow journalists are in jail now, dozens of them from my newspaper, including our prominent columnists who are over 70 years of age and young female reporters.

After a staged coup attempt in July of last year, Erdogan shut down our newspaper along with 186 critical papers, television stations and news sites. Our assets were confiscated. Today, Erdogan controls 90 percent of the Turkish media. More than 40,000 people have been arrested and 140,000 purged from their professions – including 7,000 academicians, 15,000 teachers, 20,000 military officers, and 5,000 judges and prosecutors. The leader of the pro-Kurdish party and several MP’s have been jailed, elected mayors have been dismissed and half a million people have been displaced. It is no longer possible to call Turkey a democracy.

As a victim of and witness to the process during which our democracy has been hijacked by a populist Islamist leader, I wish my country could turn back to democracy soon, and I urge Americans to never take your democratic rights for granted.