Mr. Erdogan has a long history of intimidating and co-opting the Turkish media, but new alarms were set off this week when criminal complaints were filed against editors of the Hurriyet Daily News and its website over a headline Mr. Erdogan had objected to. Referring to the verdict in the case of Mohamed Morsi, the deposed president of Egypt, it read: “The world is shocked! Death sentence for president who received 52 percent of the vote.”

Image Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey Credit... Dado Ruvic/Reuters

Mr. Erdogan, according to Today’s Zaman, said the headline suggested that he could face the same penalty; Mr. Erdogan was also elected with 52 percent of the vote in 2014. Not only is the accusation distorted and absurd; it is a slap at the idea that Turkey is still a democracy.

A lawyer and A.K.P. supporter, Rahmi Kurt, had asked prosecutors to investigate the Hurriyet editors, accusing them of “inciting people to armed rebellion against the government” and requested their arrest. Since the complaints were made, there has been no arrest. In a statement, the Turkish Journalists’ Association faulted the government for equating journalism with terrorism and said the move against the newspaper was a “new blow to press freedom and free speech.”

On Monday the prosecutor in Ankara called for a ban on several opposition media outlets associated with the Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Mr. Erdogan’s who is now in self-imposed exile in the United States, according to Reporters Without Borders. Ekrem Dumanli, the editor of Zaman,one of those media outlets, was arrested with scores of others last December and accused of leading a terrorist organization. Some journalists fear the government plans to use antiterrorism laws to shut down Hurriyet, Zaman and their parent companies — the two main independent media sources — ahead of the election and confiscate their assets.

Journalists aren’t the only ones who are worried. On Thursday, leading labor unions expressed concern about security for the June election, saying that in the quest for victory, the A.K.P. party had mobilized government institutions on its behalf and sought to depict the opposition as the “enemy” during campaign rallies and speeches.