{"id":70377,"date":"2026-04-28T16:36:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T16:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/70377\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T16:36:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T16:36:13","slug":"press-groups-condemn-turkeys-weaponization-of-disinformation-law-against-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/70377\/","title":{"rendered":"Press groups condemn Turkey\u2019s \u2018weaponization\u2019 of disinformation law against journalists"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Twenty-five international and local press freedom organizations have strongly condemned Turkey\u2019s intensified use of its disinformation law to systematically prosecute journalists, calling for the repeal of the legislation and the immediate release of all journalists held under it.<\/p>\n

In a joint statement<\/a> issued Tuesday, the groups said authorities have used Article 217\/A of the Turkish Penal Code, known as the disinformation law,\u00a0\u201cas part of a wider pattern of the weaponization of legislation to criminalize legitimate journalism and silence reporting in Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

They said the law, which entered into force in October 2022, has since been used to charge at least 83 journalists in 114 separate cases on allegations of spreading disinformation.<\/p>\n

The organizations cited several recent cases, including the February arrest of journalist Alican Uluda\u011f<\/a> on charges of spreading disinformation and insulting the president and the March detentions of Bilal \u00d6zcan over his reporting on an influencer\u2019s death and \u0130smail Ar\u0131<\/a> over his reporting on alleged financial mismanagement of public foundations.<\/p>\n

The statement said the crackdown intensified in April, when journalists Murat A\u011f\u0131rel and Bar\u0131\u015f Pehlivan<\/a> were sentenced to prison over commentary and Zafer Arapkirli<\/a> was convicted for his social media posts about attacks in Syria. Turgay K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7<\/a> was detained for sharing information about school threats and Mehmet Yetim<\/a> was put in pretrial detention over a social media post.<\/p>\n

The organizations said the disinformation law is\u00a0incompatible with international standards\u00a0and has created a hostile environment for\u00a0independent journalism in Turkey.<\/p>\n

\u201cA free and independent press is itself the most durable safeguard against the spread of false information. Criminalising journalism is neither a lawful nor an effective response to it,\u201d the groups said.<\/p>\n

They called for the repeal of the law\u00a0and other legislation restricting freedom of expression to bring Turkey into compliance with its international obligations, as well as the immediate release\u00a0of journalists held under the disinformation law.<\/p>\n

Signatories included the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), the International Press Institute (IPI), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT), the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA), PEN International, the Progressive Journalists Association (PJA), the P24 Platform for Independent Journalism, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Journalists\u2019 Union of Turkey (TGS).<\/p>\n

According to Expression Interrupted, a press freedom monitoring group, 26 journalists\u00a0are<\/a>\u00a0currently behind bars in Turkey. The country\u2019s deteriorating media landscape was underscored in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), where it was\u00a0ranked<\/a>\u00a0159th out of 180 nations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty-five international and local press freedom organizations have strongly condemned Turkey\u2019s intensified use of its disinformation law to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[83],"tags":[16138,145,13061,38345,26364,11960,19261,36219,33830,2033,131,132,35550,155,21069,33846],"class_list":["post-70377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-stockholm","tag-alican-uludag","tag-arrested-journalists","tag-baris-pehlivan","tag-bilal-ozcan","tag-disinformation-law","tag-ismail-ari","tag-media-freedom","tag-mehmet-yetim","tag-murat-agirel","tag-press-freedom","tag-stockholm","tag-sweden","tag-turgay-kilic","tag-turkey","tag-turkish-penal-code","tag-zafer-arapkirli"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116483312033471411","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70377","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=70377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}