{"id":46607,"date":"2026-03-23T18:28:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T18:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/46607\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T18:28:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T18:28:18","slug":"turkey-has-investigated-at-least-70-journalists-under-controversial-disinformation-law-since-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/46607\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey has investigated at least 70 journalists under controversial \u2018disinformation law\u2019 since 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <a href=\"https:\/\/stockholmcf.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Press-Freedom-AFP.webp\" data-caption=\"Photo: AFP\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" class=\"entry-thumb td-modal-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Press-Freedom-AFP-696x392.webp.webp\"   alt=\"\" title=\"Press Freedom- AFP\"\/><\/a>Photo: AFP<\/p>\n<p>Turkish authorities have investigated at least 70 journalists under a controversial \u201cdisinformation law\u201d since 2022, among whom 15 were detained, four were arrested and 27 indicted, the BirG\u00fcn daily <a href=\"https:\/\/www.birgun.net\/haber\/amaclari-susturmak-gazeteciye-yasa-sopasi-700880\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The investigations have resulted in four journalists being jailed pending trial, according to reporting by the opposition-aligned BirG\u00fcn newspaper. Among recent cases, authorities detained \u0130smail Ar\u0131, a reporter for BirG\u00fcn, on Saturday and put him in pretrial detention on Sunday over his reporting that allegedly spread false information.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Press freedom advocates and opposition figures argue that the law has been used to target critical reporting, allowing authorities to label factual journalism as false information.<\/p>\n<p>Members of the ruling alliance reject that characterization. Feti Y\u0131ld\u0131z, a senior figure in the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which backed the legislation along with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said in February that the law does not target journalists or legitimate reporting.<\/p>\n<p>The measure, passed in October 2022, introduced Article 217\/A to the Turkish Penal Code, creating a new offense of \u201cpublicly spreading misleading information.\u201d Those convicted can face prison sentences of one to three years, with harsher penalties in certain circumstances. Critics say the wording is vague and allows prosecutors broad discretion, while the government says it is necessary to counter false information, particularly online.<\/p>\n<p>Individual cases documented by press freedom groups include journalists such as Tolga \u015eardan, who was detained in 2023 over a report on alleged corruption in the judiciary; Sinan Ayg\u00fcl, who was convicted under the law; and Alican Uluda\u011f, who was detained in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/rsf.org\/en\/country-t%25252525C3%25252525BCrkiye\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">is ranked<\/a>\u00a0159th out of 180 countries in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, published by RSF in May 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: AFP Turkish authorities have investigated at least 70 journalists under a controversial \u201cdisinformation law\u201d since 2022, among&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[422,423,16138,425,26364,426,312,11960,427,428,429,2033,431,26365,131,132,21943,155],"class_list":{"0":"post-46607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-stockholm","8":"tag-ak-party","9":"tag-akp","10":"tag-alican-uludag","11":"tag-democracy","12":"tag-disinformation-law","13":"tag-erdogan","14":"tag-human-rights","15":"tag-ismail-ari","16":"tag-justice","17":"tag-law","18":"tag-oppression","19":"tag-press-freedom","20":"tag-rule-of-law","21":"tag-sinan-aygul","22":"tag-stockholm","23":"tag-sweden","24":"tag-tolga-sardan","25":"tag-turkey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116279909102868914","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}