Five well-known journalists were briefly detained yesterday for questioning in connection with a corruption investigation targeting the opposition-led İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality.
The investigation involves allegations of “openly spreading false information” and “aiding a criminal organization,” İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement. It is part of a wider probe in which İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was arrested and suspended from office in March.
İmamoğlu, a leading figure in the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), is accused of leading a profit-oriented criminal organization dubbed asthe "Ekrem İmamoğlu Criminal Organization" by prosecutors. More than 100 others, mostly municipal employees and officials, as well as businesspeople, are currently in pretrial detention as part of the investigation.
Explained: The broader context behind Turkey’s crackdown on İstanbul mayor
Pro-İmamoğlu statements cited as evidence
Journalists Soner Yalçın, Şaban Sevinç, Ruşen Çakır, Yavuz Oğhan, and Batuhan Çolak were taken from their homes to give statements at police headquarters. They were released a few hours later with international travel bans. Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, who is reportedly abroad, did not give a statement.
What linked the journalists to the alleged criminal network were their statements in support of İmamoğlu following his detention, according to the prosecutors. The journalists are accused of forming the media wing of the organization, alongside İmamoğlu’s former media adviser Murat Ongun and Emrah Bağdatlı.
There were no formal arrest warrants for the journalists, according to the statement of the prosecutor's office. Instead, police were instructed to take their statements in what is growing practice in which individuals are brought in from their homes without formal detention procedures.
‘De facto detentions’ without court orders becoming increasingly common in Turkey
Burhanettin Bulut, CHP deputy chair in charge of public and media relations, criticized the operation in a statement on social media, asking, "If there were no arrest warrants, why were police at their homes at dawn?"
“Couldn’t they have been invited to give their statements? This 'de facto detention' is a clear act of intimidation targeting the opposition and the free press. The systematic pressure on the media in Turkey has turned into a witch hunt.” (VK)
