A criminal court on Wednesday ordered the release of four journalists who had spent a month in pretrial detention after they were arrested on charges of “membership in an illegal organization,” the Velev news website reported.
Ozan Cırık from the sendika.org news website and freelance journalists Eylem Emel Yılmaz, Dicle Baştürk and Yavuz Akengin were released after the panel of judges conducting their first monthly detention review put them under judicial supervision. They must report regularly to the police and cannot leave the country.
The four were among seven media workers detained during early-morning raids in İstanbul on June 13 at the request of the Artvin Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office. Prosecutors transferred the group to Artvin for questioning, and on June 17 the court jailed Cırık, Yılmaz, Baştürk and Akengin while releasing Semra Pelek, Melisa Efe and Ömer Bülenter under the same supervision measures.
The investigation file remains sealed, but defense attorneys say the case rests on routine journalistic activity. Bedrettin Kalın, representing the arrestees, told reporters outside the Artvin courthouse that prosecutors cited news reporting, payments for freelance work and technical help provided to news websites as evidence of criminal conduct.
“Our friends were simply doing their jobs,” Kalın said. “They reported news for independent outlets and received payment, which is their only income. Justice sometimes errs, yet today the judge considered our arguments and ruled for release. We hope the rest of the process will proceed fairly.”
Kalın added that neither he nor the other lawyers understand why the case is based in Artvin, a province hundreds of kilometers from where the journalists live and work.
Press freedom groups say the proceedings fit a broader pattern in Turkey, where authorities often use vague penal laws to silence critical media. Expression Interrupted, a monitoring project, documented 25 journalist arrests in the first quarter of 2025. Reporters Without Borders ranked Turkey 159th out of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index in May.
Turkey intensified its crackdown on independent outlets after a coup attempt in July 2016, shuttering nearly two hundred media organizations and jailing scores of journalists. Although the number of incarcerated reporters has fallen from its peak, rights advocates say criminal investigations continue to chill critical coverage.