RSF urges Turkey to release journalist arrested on espionage charges

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Tuesday called on Turkish authorities to immediately release journalist Merdan Yanardağ, the editor-in-chief of the TELE1 broadcaster, who has been arrested on charges of “espionage.”

Yanardağ was detained on October 24 in İstanbul and subsequently arrested, accused of spying in an investigation that also targets jailed İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, the main political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and his campaign manager, Necati Özkan.

RSF said the new charges come even though Turkey’s Constitutional Court recently ruled that Yanardağ’s earlier pretrial detention in 2023 for producing “terrorist propaganda” was unlawful. The court ordered the government to pay him 166,500 Turkish lira in compensation.

The judges found that Yanardağ, who has worked as a journalist for 42 years, had not praised any terrorist organization and that his imprisonment violated his right to liberty and security. His earlier detention followed remarks broadcast on TELE1 criticizing the government’s handling of the Kurdish struggle for recognition.

Two days after police detained Yanardağ at his home last month. a court also placed TELE1’s parent company, ABC Radio Television and Digital Broadcasting Corporation, under the control of the state-run Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF).

Dozens of TELE1 employees have since resigned rather than work under an administrator appointed by a body close to the government.

“The accumulation of lawsuits against Merdan Yanardag based on absurd charges clearly targeting his independent journalism, the sanctions and measures taken against his channel, and the Constitutional Court’s decision confirming the injustice of his previous detention reveal the extent of the authorities’ attempt to silence him and his channel via the courts,” said Erol Önderoğlu, RSF’s representative in Turkey.

RSF said Yanardağ has now been prosecuted four times in five years and that his repeated arrests are part of a wider pattern of judicial harassment of critical media in Turkey.