A Turkish court on Friday ordered journalist Furkan Karabay to be put under house arrest pending trial as part of an investigation linked to the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality, with prosecutors accusing him of publicly disseminating misleading information, Turkish Minute reported.
Karabay, an investigative court reporter currently working for the Medyascope news website, has previously been detained and imprisoned multiple times over his reporting. He was taken into custody in the late hours of Thursday in İstanbul, his lawyer, Enes Ermaner, said. He was taken to the İstanbul Courthouse on Friday after police questioning.
Karabay was detained due to a special report he wrote for Medyascope on January 22 in which he reported about the content of some controversial additional case files in an indictment filed against İstanbul’s jailed mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu.
İmamoğlu, a prominent figure in Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and its 2028 presidential candidate, has been in pretrial detention since March on charges that include corruption and “political espionage.” His arrest, which came just hours after his formal nomination, sparked nationwide protests and has been widely condemned as politically motivated.
Karabay’s report said that after an İstanbul court accepted İmamoğlu’s indictment, additional case files revealed an anonymous and unsigned complaint containing slanderous allegations about the mayor and his family.
According to the report, the document was incorporated into the investigation file as “evidence” with a note from the then–İstanbul deputy chief prosecutor, despite lacking an identified author. The inclusion of the anonymous complaint drew attention after it emerged in the court files.
The nearly 4,000-page indictment, filed in November, accuses İmamoğlu, who is seen as the most powerful political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of leading a vast criminal network and committing 142 offenses that could result in a sentence of up to 2,430 years in prison
Karabay denied the accusations in his statement to prosecutors, saying his reporting was based on documented facts and did not involve the dissemination of misleading information.
He said he did not accept the charges and requested his release. He was referred to court for arrest.
His lawyer, Ermaner, said the existence and authenticity of the documents showed the information was not misleading and therefore could not constitute a crime.
Karabay’s detention due to his reporting has attracted widespread criticism.
Lawyer Hüseyin Ersöz said the alleged offense was based solely on Karabay’s reporting and posts on X while criticizing what he described as the repeated use of detention against Karabay because of his journalistic activities.
“No one should be detained or subjected to restrictive measures for nonviolent expressions of opinion,” Ersöz said on X, calling the case a matter of legal security.
Most recently Karabay was arrested on May 15, 2025, on charges of insulting the president and targeting public officials involved in counterterrorism efforts in his reports and social media posts concerning investigations into opposition mayors. He was released on December 2, 2025, after spending 201 days in pretrial detention.
Karabay is a known for his critical coverage of investigations targeting municipalities in İstanbul run by the CHP, which has been under a harsh crackdown for more than a year.
Critics say Erdoğan wants to sideline İmamoğlu, his strongest political rival, in the next presidential race by ensuring his arrest on politically motivated charges.
Karabay had also been arrested in November 2024 for reporting on the detention of Esenyurt Mayor Ahmet Özer and the appointment of a trustee to the CHP-run municipality. He was released 10 days later.
In April 2025 Karabay received a two-year suspended sentence over remarks in a YouTube interview about claims of offshore accounts allegedly owned by Erdoğan’s family, allegations first raised by then-opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in 2017.
In Turkey insulting the president is a criminal offense under Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code. The law has been widely criticized by press freedom advocates because it is often used to prosecute journalists, politicians and even ordinary citizens for expressing views that might be critical or satirical of the president, even indirectly.
Turkey, which remains one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists, according to press freedom organizations, dropped to 159th out of 180 countries in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in early May.
Turkish authorities frequently use broad counterterrorism laws and insult charges to prosecute members of the press.
