A Turkish journalist was briefly detained on Tuesday on accusations of “publicly disseminating misinformation,” over his social media posts related to a police operation in northwestern Turkey that left three officers dead, Turkish media reported.
In a series of social media posts, journalist Fatih Ergin said he was taken into custody over commentary he shared after an hours-long clash during a pre-dawn police raid targeting suspected Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in Yalova province.
According to official statements, six suspected ISIL militants were killed during the operation. Three police officers died, while eight officers and one neighborhood night watchman were wounded.
In the posts cited as grounds for his detention, Ergin said he had been reporting for years on ISIL networks operating in Turkey but faced repeated restrictions on his social media account. He argued that the authorities’ failure to dismantle these networks had ultimately led to the deaths of three police officers in Yalova.
In another post referenced by authorities, Ergin recalled that he had previously revealed that Syrian ISIL members detained in İzmir in July 2024 were later granted Turkish citizenship during the tenure of then–interior minister Süleyman Soylu.
After giving his statement to prosecutors, Ergin was released under judicial supervision. He was banned from traveling abroad and ordered to report to authorities once a week.
Following the operation, Turkey’s broadcast regulator, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), imposed a broadcast ban, prohibiting all news reports, interviews, images and social media posts related to the incident and ordering the removal of existing material from publication.
According to Expression Interrupted, a press freedom monitoring group, 29 journalists are currently behind bars in Turkey. The country’s deteriorating media landscape was also highlighted in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which ranked Turkey 159th out of 180 nations.
