A Turkish court has issued an arrest warrant for Kurdish journalist Nedim Türfent, citing social media posts as evidence of criminal conduct. The decision comes amid an intensifying crackdown on independent journalism, marked most recently by the imprisonment of journalist Metin Yoksu.
Türfent is accused of “propagandising for an illegal organisation” based on posts and retweets he shared on social media platform X. His lawyers say the case relies entirely on content that includes news reporting and commentary — some of which had already been used in a previous trial that led to his imprisonment in 2016.
“The X posts have been treated as criminal evidence,” Türfent told Medya News. “There is nothing else in the file. Some of the same tweets from the previous case are being reused. This is a blatant violation of legal norms,” he said.
Türfent said his recent posts included criticism of government policies and human rights violations.
“Treating news and opinion as terrorism is, in a word, unserious,” he said. “Calling these posts criminal reflects the absurdity of the file.”
Türfent was arrested in May 2016 and remained in prison for six years and seven months before his release in November 2022. The warrant in the current case was issued by a court in Yüksekova (Gever), a district in the predominantly Kurdish province of Hakkari (Colemêrg) in eastern Turkey. Türfent is currently in Germany, taking part in a guest writer programme supported by an international freedom of expression organisation. His earlier detention was widely criticised by human rights groups, who said the case was politically motivated and reflective of broader efforts to suppress Kurdish journalism.
In a separate but related development, journalist Metin Yoksu was jailed on 26 June after voluntarily appearing before a prosecutor in Batman (Êlih). He faces accusations of “membership in an illegal organisation” as part of a wider investigation based in the northeastern province of Artvin. Yoksu’s home had been raided earlier in June, though he was not present at the time.
“My house was raided because I do journalism,” Yoksu wrote on X before entering the courthouse. “This is not the first time I’ve been prosecuted for my work. I’ll continue to do what I’ve always done. There’s no need to raid my house — just call and I’ll come. I’m heading to the prosecutor’s office. Whatever the outcome, I will always be a journalist.”
Several journalists and media workers have been detained as part of the same investigation. These include Dicle Baştürk, Ozan Cırık, Eylem Emel Yılmaz and Yavuz Akengin, who were jailed after their court hearings. Others — including journalist Semra Pelek, translator Melisa Efe (who was working with the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), and Ömer Bülenter — were released under judicial supervision.
