Lawyers for Turkish journalist Tuğba Tekerek have petitioned Turkey’s Constitutional Court for her release from pretrial detention, saying prosecutors have not disclosed evidence supporting allegations that she administered an LGBTQ+ rights group’s Instagram account.
The Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) said Tuesday that the application alleged violations of Tekerek’s rights to liberty, freedom of expression, press freedom and a fair trial under the Turkish Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The application also alleged that authorities had treated her journalistic work as grounds for criminal suspicion.
According to the MLSA, investigators alleged that Tekerek was one of the administrators of the LGBTQ+ rights group Kaos GL’s Instagram account, but her lawyers said no technical evidence had been disclosed to support the claim. The MLSA requested IP records, account access logs, platform information and device examination results from the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on September 30 but had received no response by the time the Constitutional Court application was filed.
The application also alleged that Tekerek’s lawyers could not access the complaint filed in the case or its supporting documents through Turkey’s online judicial records system, preventing them from fully examining the evidence against her.
Tekerek was detained in İstanbul on September 13 and transferred to Ankara, where a court ordered her jailed pending trial on September 15. She denied managing Kaos GL’s social media accounts, saying her only connection to the group was a freelance article she wrote about LGBTQ+ people during Georgia’s 2024 elections.
The application also raised concerns about Tekerek’s treatment in police custody. Her lawyers said blood, hair and urine samples were taken after she was warned that force could be used to obtain them. She was also not allowed to contact her lawyers. They also reported that she was filmed in handcuffs alongside detainees from unrelated investigations and had to wait several days to receive medical attention and medication for severe migraines.
Her lawyers challenged the detention order on September 21, but the Ankara 10th Criminal Court of First Instance rejected their appeal on September 25. Tekerek remains at Sincan Prison in Ankara.
Tekerek’s detention came amid a broader crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights groups in September, when Turkish authorities detained activists and opened investigations into several organizations. Eight international press freedom groups called for her release, warning that jailing a journalist over alleged social media activity threatened press freedom.
According to Expression Interrupted, a press freedom monitoring group, 27 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.
