A Turkish court on Tuesday sentenced journalist Züleyha Müldür to six years and three months in prison on charges of membership in a terrorist organization, the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) reported.
The İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court handed down the sentence at the sixth hearing of the trial. Prosecutors cited Müldür’s work as a reporter for the Etkin News Agency (ETHA), attendance at demonstrations and public events and social media activity as evidence of her alleged membership in the outlawed Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP).
The evidence included Müldür’s attendance at an anniversary event for the Atılım newspaper, her distribution of copies of the newspaper and her participation in a commemoration of the 2015 Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) suicide bombing in Suruç, which killed 33 people, and participation in a protest against the government’s removal of elected Kurdish mayors and their replacement with state-appointed trustees.
Müldür denied the accusations and requested her acquittal, saying the activities cited against her were protected by the constitution and were part of her work as a journalist and her political and feminist activism.
Her lawyer, Lokman Emen, said the investigation had begun with an intelligence note and argued that Müldür’s exercise of her democratic rights had been treated as criminal activity. He also challenged evidence obtained through police “virtual patrols,” an online monitoring practice whose legal basis was struck down by the Constitutional Court in 2020.
Müldür was detained in January 2025 in an operation targeting several left-wing organizations and was jailed pending trial. She was released at the first hearing on June 25, 2025 under judicial supervision, including a travel ban and a requirement to report to authorities weekly.
While the trial was still underway, Müldür was detained again in February 2026 in a separateinvestigation targeting left-wing organizations and media outlets over alleged links to the MLKP. She was released under judicial supervision, while fellow ETHA journalists Nadiye Gürbüz, Pınar Gayıp, Elif Bayburt and Müslüm Koyun were jailed pending trial. Gayıp, Bayburt and Koyun have since been released, while Gürbüz remains in pretrial detention after the court denied her release.
According to Expression Interrupted, a press freedom monitoring group, 22 journalists are currently behind bars in Turkey. The country’s deteriorating media landscape was further pointed out in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), where it was ranked 163rd out of 180 nations.
