Journalist İsmail Arı faces six years prison for 'spreading disinformation'

The Press Crimes Bureau of the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office has prepared an indictment against BirGün reporter İsmail Arı, seeking up to six years in prison for "spreading misleading information" and "violating confidentiality."

The charges stem from Arı’s news reports and social media commentary. Arı was detained during a house raid on Mar 21 and remains in pretrial detention.

News subject to accusations

Arı’s statements regarding President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s family members serving on the boards of foundations such as TÜGVA, TÜRGEV, and İlim Yayma Cemiyeti formed the basis for the charge of spreading misleading information. Arı had reported that public resources are channeled to these organizations and that they benefit from tax exemptions.

Prosecutors also included Arı’s posts concerning a dorm construction project at the İstanbul İmam Hatip High School in Fatih where President Erdoğan graduated. Arı had reported that the dormitory construction had begun on Treasury land that included registered cultural assets.

Regarding the news, the indictment used a statement from the Presidential Communications Directorate's Center for Combating Disinformation (DMM) as evidence against Arı. The center had labeled the report as "clear disinformation."

BIA Media Monitoring Reports

13 December 2024

Arı's post about a 630 million liras corruption investigation involving the Yunus Emre Foundation was also included in the indictment. Regarding this report, the prosecution charged Arı with violating confidentiality, noting that the Ankara 2nd Penal Court of First Instance had issued a restriction order on the investigation on Dec 23, 2024.

The prosecution is seeking one to three years for spreading misleading information and an additional one to three years for violating confidentiality.

Erdoğan family and foundations

During a broadcast on BirGün TV, Arı commented on the involvement of the Erdoğan family in various foundations.

"The Erdoğan family manages around 20 foundations," Arı claimed. Erdoğan's children Bilal and Sümeyye Erdoğan, and his spouse Emine Erdoğan are on the boards of many of these foundations, he said.

"The most important thing is that public resources can be mobilized for these foundations. They say, 'These foundations operate for the public benefit.' Because of this status, they argue it is normal and not a crime for municipalities, public institutions, and governorates to allocate buildings or buses, or provide other economic and financial contributions.

"In recent years, we saw that a very large portion of the dormitory buildings of these foundations were actually public buildings belonging to municipalities, or that municipalities rented them from individuals and allocated them to these foundations. This is a very significant resource. We can say that millions or billions of liras are involved here."

Arı had also reported on allegations of "fake invoices" and irregular payments causing financial loss to the Yunus Emre Foundation. Two separate indictments were previously filed against 23 suspects in that case involving approximately 400 million liras in irregularities. (HA/VK)