Turkish police detained KHK TV editor Ahmet Erkan Yiğitsözlü and dismissed workers’ rights advocate Münir Korkmaz in separate cities on Monday as part of an investigation led by prosecutors in Osmaniye, the TR724 news website reported.
Yiğitsözlü was detained in Ankara, while Korkmaz was taken into custody during a police raid on his home in Adana. Both were reportedly transported to Osmaniye. Authorities have not publicly disclosed the allegations against them or explained the scope of the investigation.
The detentions drew criticism from lawmakers representing the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party). In posts on X, Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu called for the men’s release and an explanation from authorities, while Sezai Temelli described the detentions as an attack on the public’s right to information and dismissed workers’ struggle for justice.
The Adana branch of the Human Rights Association (İHD), of which Korkmaz is a member, also called for his release, criticizing the detention of people engaged in human rights advocacy.
Both men have worked to document the experiences of public employees dismissed under emergency decrees following a failed coup in July 2016, many over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted the faith-based Gülen movement, inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who died in 2024, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle. He dismissed the probes as a Gülenist conspiracy and designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after the coup attempt in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the attempted coup or any terrorist activity.
Yiğitsözlü has also faced repeated detentions. When police briefly detained him in January 2025 over a social media post criticizing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), he said it was his 14th time in custody.
KHK TV reports on the consequences of Turkey’s post-coup dismissals. Korkmaz helped establish the outlet and served on its editorial board.
Korkmaz, a spokesperson for KHK Platforms, an organization advocating for dismissed public employees, lost his public school teaching position on October 29, 2016, under Emergency Decree No. 675, known in Turkish as a kanun hükmünde kararname (KHK). He helped establish the Adana KHK Platform in 2018.
In the 2019 local elections, Korkmaz won a seat on the Çukurova city council in Adana on the candidate list of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). However, after he had served for approximately two months, Turkey’s Supreme Election Board revoked his certificate of election because he had been dismissed from public service under an emergency decree. He is currently a member of the Green Left Party’s central executive board.
Yiğitsözlü was also dismissed from his position at the state-run Anadolu news agency under an emergency decree issued following the July 2016 coup attempt, over alleged Gülen links. In October 2024, an Osmaniye court sentenced him to more than six years in prison for membership in an armed terrorist organization. He denied wrongdoing and said the court had cited his use of the Signal messaging app as evidence against him.
He appealed the conviction to the Supreme Court of Appeals, according to January 2025 reporting. The outcome of that appeal could not be confirmed.
