BirGün correspondent İsmail Arı was arrested on Wednesday after a hearing at Ankara's 6th Criminal Court of Peace, the newspaper reported. The court ordered him held on suspicion that he might flee or tamper with evidence, according to birgun.net. Arı had been taken into custody the previous night and brought to the courthouse that morning.
The charge against him is "publicly spreading misleading information," a provision carrying a prison term of one to three years. BirGün published the text of the offence, which covers knowingly circulating false information about the country's internal or external security, public order or public health in a way liable to disturb public peace, when done with the intent of creating anxiety, fear or panic among the public.
Why it matters
The case adds another name to the list of Turkish journalists jailed while working, and it has drawn a sharp response from Arı's employer. BirGün's Ankara representative Nurcan Gökdemir told reporters outside the courthouse that the prosecution amounts to punishment for journalism itself. She argued that the material behind the charge consists of ordinary reporting activity — a message sent to seek comment and a social media post — and that no one has shown how either misled the public.
How the day unfolded
According to birgun.net's account, Arı spent the night at a police station and was transferred to the courthouse at around 10:00. His statement to prosecutors began at noon and ended about an hour later. Prosecutors then sought his arrest and sent him before the peace court, where questioning started at 16:00.
The court issued its detention decision later that day. BirGün reported that the judges pointed to the possibility of flight and of destruction of evidence as grounds.
Leaving the hearing, Arı rejected the ruling. He said the judge had not listened to him and had cut off his lawyers, and that he was being sent back to prison on a charge that would not even carry actual time behind bars. The newspaper said he was taken to Sincan Prison.
The two accusations
Gökdemir said the first accusation rests on a WhatsApp exchange Arı had while reporting a story about Ebubekir Şahin, a former head of Turkey's broadcasting regulator RTÜK who is now general manager of Türk Telekom. Arı had tried repeatedly to obtain Şahin's comment for the article and turned to WhatsApp when he could not reach him, she said. According to Gökdemir, the messages contain no threat, no coercion, no insult and no profanity.
The second accusation concerns a post said to have been published from an X account, which Arı is alleged to have used to share a photograph of himself at the funeral of the father of Osman Nacar, a figure linked to a fund investigation. Gökdemir said prosecutors produced neither an image nor a record to support the claim, and that the location of the account could not be established.
A detention the newspaper calls unexplained
Gökdemir described how the arrest came about. Arı was phoned on Tuesday and asked to give a statement at the security branch of Ankara's police headquarters, she said. He left the office within about ten minutes with his lawyers, and the paper assumed it was a routine procedure. Repeated calls during the journey, including offers from police to come and collect him, suggested otherwise, and about an hour later the staff learned he had been detained.
That sequence, Gökdemir argued, makes the flight risk hard to sustain, since Arı went to the police himself on foot and accompanied by counsel. She made the same point about evidence tampering, noting that the posts cited as evidence are already public. She also said Arı's defence and his lawyers' submissions were interrupted during the peace court hearing before the detention order was issued.
"This is journalism being punished," Gökdemir said, adding that the effect she believes is intended is to silence discussion of the fund scandal — to jail those who try to speak and to discourage those still outside from writing or reporting at all. She said journalists always find a way to do their work, and that when one is imprisoned others will be found to write in their place. "Journalism is not a crime," she said. "Take your hands off us."
The RTÜK provision Arı is charged under has become a recurring tool in cases against Turkish reporters, birgun.net noted, describing it as the basis on which journalists have been penalised. The newspaper questioned where the misleading information in this case lies and who was misled, saying no rule of law could establish it, and added that even if the offence were proven, it would not carry a sentence Arı would actually serve.
What to watch
It is not yet clear when an indictment will be filed or whether Arı's lawyers will challenge the detention order. Watch for a formal objection to the ruling and for any statement from prosecutors setting out the evidence behind the two accusations.
