The father of a journalist who reported an AKP official’s connection to a suspect in the case of missing student Gülistan Doku has been suspended from his public sector job, days after a pro-government news director disclosed the family’s personal information on social media and tagged government officials.
According to the BirGün daily, journalist Sarya Toprak reported that Uğurcan Açıkgöz, a suspect detained in the investigation into Doku’s disappearance, was the nephew of Cihan Açıkgöz, the then-AKP provincial chair who remains a member of the party’s İzmir provincial executive board.
Gülistan Doku, a student at Munzur University in Tunceli, went missing on January 5, 2020, after leaving her dormitory. Her phone was last detected near a bridge over the Uzunçayır reservoir, but her body has never been found. The case took a turn with new evidence that led to the arrest of the former Tunceli governor, his son, his bodyguard and five others.
Following the news report, Yeni Akit news director Zekeriya Say began targeting Toprak and her family on April 18, sharing posts on social media that disclosed details about her father’s workplace, union membership and union activities while tagging the Bursa Governor’s Office and the AKP’s provincial branch.
Hasan Toprak, the journalist’s father and a director at an institution affiliated with the Bursa Provincial Directorate of Family and Social Services, was suspended from his job on April 29 after the online targeting campaign. He had already been the subject of an administrative investigation following a complaint filed two months earlier by an employee alleging mobbing and insults to religious values.
“What kind of law punishes a father for his daughter’s reporting?” Sarya Toprak said in a social media post announcing her father’s suspension.
Journalism organizations condemned the targeting of Toprak’s family and her father’s suspension. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Turkey representative Erol Önderoğlu criticized to the suspension, asking whether pressure on journalists was now being targeted and called for the decision to be reversed.
The Contemporary Journalists’ Association (ÇGD) said extending pressure on journalists to their families amounted to a systematic policy of intimidation and a blow to democratic rights.
Labor unions also criticized the suspension and the online targeting campaign.
The Press Workers Union of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK Basın-İş) criticized pro-government media outlets and their representatives for targeting journalists to isolate and silence them, expressing solidarity with Toprak and vowing to pursue legal action.
The Confederation of Public Employees Trade Unions (KESK), of which Hasan Toprak is a member, said he was the only union-affiliated administrator in institutions under the Bursa Directorate of Family and Social Services, suggesting this was the reason for his suspension. The confederation added that they would file a criminal complaint over the disclosure of personal data of the family.
According to Expression Interrupted, a press freedom monitoring group, 26 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.
