Judicial procedure violated in Türkiye to detain investigative reporter

Ismail Ari,an investigative reporter for Birgün(One Day), a newspaper known for criticising the government, was arrested at around 10 p.m. on 21 March 21 in Turhal, a district in the northern province of Tokat, where he had gone to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, and was transferred to the capital, Ankara, for questioning. He was remanded in custody by a judge at Ankara's Sincan Prison at the behest of a prosecutor who requested his pretrial detention without questioning him, a procedure that is clearly illegal under Turkish law.

At the police station, he had been questioned about content shared on X and YouTube, and articles related to his investigations into public funding for a network of foundations run by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's family. Posts about alleged irregularities in a construction project for Imam Hatip schools in Istanbul's Fatih district were also concerned. "They've been looking for an excuse to arrest me for a year," the journalist said in a statement released by his lawyers.

Ismail Ari is known for his investigations into irregularities within government agencies, especially cases of corruption, clientelism and other abuses. He has also investigated collusion between the government and religious (Tarikat) groups and the impact of such ties.

Ismail Ari is being prosecuted under Article 217(A) of the Penal Code, a provision penalising "the public dissemination of misleading information" that was added in October 2022. It has been widely used since then to detain dozens of journalists and investigative reporters. They include Alican Uludag, a correspondent for the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, who was arrested in February following a story about the repatriation of Turkish citizens affiliated to Islamic State (IS). Tolga Sardan, an investigative journalist for the independent news site T24, was also wrongfully charged in 2023 in connection with his reporting on judicial corruption.

In addition to Ismail Ari and Alican Uludag, two other journalists are currently detained in Turkey. They are Merdan Yanardag, editor-in-chief of the Télé1television channel, and Furkan Karabay,a reporter for the news website Gercek Gundem("True Agenda"), who is under house arrest. Türkiye is ranked 159th out of 180 countries and territories in RSF's 2025 World Press Freedom Index.