The journalists who were covering the protests that erupted following the detention of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu—Yasin Akgül, Ali Onur Tosun, Bülent Kılıç, Zeynep Kuray, Kurtuluş Arı, Gökhan Kam, and Hayri Tunç—were arrested after being taken into custody on charges of 'violating the law on meetings and demonstrations.' They were released on Thursday morning.

In an interview with ANF about the arrest process carried out under the orders of the Turkish Ministry of Interior, the co-chair of the Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG), Selman Çiçek, said: "Every day in Turkey, we wake up to a new act of lawlessness. After mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoğlu’s diploma was unlawfully annulled, he was first taken into custody and then formally arrested. When we look at the case file, we see that it is entirely based on secret witnesses and contains no concrete evidence whatsoever. You are familiar with what followed. The arrest of Ekrem Imamoğlu sparked massive public outrage. Large-scale protests erupted, especially in Istanbul, but also in many other parts of Turkey."

Çiçek added: "The government’s response was repression, violence, and torture. The footage that emerged from the protests clearly depicted acts of torture. Journalists brought these acts of torture to public attention. As the images of torture began to circulate, public outrage grew stronger. Disturbed by this, the government tried to suppress members of the press. In a single day, eleven of our colleagues were taken into custody.

All of these colleagues are journalists who work at an international level. They are well-known professionals who have received numerous awards for their work. But the real aim was to conceal the torture, to keep it out of public view, and to suppress the people’s reaction. That is why eleven of our fellow journalists were arrested. They tried to silence the voice of truth, but the voice of journalists cannot be silenced through arrests."

The legal system has become one that operates on orders

Çiçek pointed out that although the journalists in custody were initially told they would be released under judicial control, a sudden arrest order was issued shortly afterward, revealing, he said, that the decision had been made by direct political instruction. He emphasized that the legal system in Turkey has transformed into one that now functions on political instructions rather than legal principles, and added: "Our journalist friends were arrested on the basis of an order—that is how we see it. As journalists who stand by the tradition of the Free Press, we will continue to bring the truth to the people. No matter what happens, we will keep reporting on torture, public resistance, and be the voice of the oppressed. The sole duty of a journalist is to deliver the truth to the public. And because we do that, we are unfortunately being targeted. Some of our colleagues may be detained or arrested, but we have resisted so far and always spoke the truth under all circumstances."

 We are faced with a Hitler-like mentality

Çiçek stated that journalists are being criminalized through direct intervention by the government and added: "This is not only done by the government itself, but also by its affiliated institutions. The Directorate of Communications in Turkey is being run like Hitler’s propaganda minister, Goebbels, in Germany. We are confronted with a Hitler-like mentality—one that denies everything, bans everything, and cannot tolerate anything that opposes it.

Just think about it: in one country, access to over 700 accounts on platform X is blocked. Even the X platform, which has remained silent in the face of countless unlawful restrictions until now, has finally said ‘enough’ and spoken out. Access is restricted to many news websites. Through these actions, they are not just criminalizing the press—they are also completely disregarding freedom of thought and expression. In Turkey today, freedom of expression has reached an almost nonexistent level. In the global press freedom rankings, Turkey ranks among the lowest of the 180 countries."