An İstanbul court has arrested another journalist under the country’s controversial disinformation law, days after YouTube journalist Ali Tarakçı was jailed over a social media post predicting that a cabinet minister would resign.
Fatih Ergin, news coordinator for the nationalist Nefes daily, was taken into custody in İstanbul on September 27 and arrested the following day on suspicion of “publicly spreading disinformation,” the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Tuesday.
His arrest concerns a social media post about the death of Turgay Tamer, a doctor who had recently been briefly detained in a reopened investigation into the 2011 death in custody of former Turkish intelligence operative Kaşif Kozinoğlu.
Ergin initially identified Tamer as a forensic expert but later corrected the post, saying he had been a doctor at a prison campus.
The arrest came two days after Tarakçı was jailed pending trial under the same provision. Tarakçı had posted on X on September 23 that “a very important minister” would resign that Friday, without naming anyone. No such resignation took place.
Tarakçı’s entire X account was also blocked in Turkey.
Both journalists are being investigated under Article 217/A of the Turkish Penal Code, commonly known as the “disinformation law.” Adopted in 2022, the provision provides prison sentences of one to three years for publicly disseminating false information concerning security, public order or public health with the aim of causing fear, panic or concern.
The CPJ said more than a dozen journalists have been detained or arrested under the law since the beginning of 2026 and accused Turkish authorities of using it with increasing frequency against the press.
“When the disinformation law came into force in 2022, Turkish authorities promised it would not target journalists, but today we see it being used with alarming regularity to silence journalists and prevent them from doing their jobs,” CPJ Turkey representative Özgür Öğret said.
CPJ and 22 other press freedom and human rights groups called in April for Article 217/A to be repealed, saying its vague wording is incompatible with international press freedom standards. The groups said at least 83 journalists had faced the charge 114 times since the provision entered into force.
Several journalists have been detained or convicted under the provision this year. BirGün reporter İsmail Arı was arrested in March before being acquitted and released after 75 days in custody, while journalists Oya Lale Arslan and İrem Delice were among those arrested in September.
The CPJ said it had sought comment from Turkey’s Justice Ministry about the arrests of Tarakçı and Ergin but received no response.
This article is republished from Turkish Minute.
