Nalin Öztekin
A Turkish court has sentenced Süha Çardaklı and Serkan Kafkas, administrators of the Ajans Muhbir social media account, to suspended prison terms over their posts critical of refugees. The ruling came after a lengthy trial involving 30 defendants, including several journalists and social media users.
The seventh hearing of the case was held at Ankara’s 7th Criminal Court of First Instance. While some defendants and lawyers were present in the courtroom, Ali Şehirlioğlu, the deputy chairman of the nationalist Zafer (Victory) Party, also attended as an observer.
The defendants, including Çardaklı, Kafkas, Batuhan Çolak—the editor-in-chief of the news site Aykırı—and various social media users, faced charges of “inciting hatred and enmity or degrading the public,” “publicly disseminating misleading information,” and “threatening to cause fear and panic among the public.”
In his defense statement, journalist Süha Çardaklı recalled that he had previously spent nearly four months in pretrial detention in connection with the case. He emphasized that all posts on the Ajans Muhbir X account were made under real names and insisted they were engaged in journalism, not opinion sharing. "The reports we made were factual. If they were lies, they would have been denied, but all were verified by official institutions," Çardaklı said, questioning, "Why is no one from TRT [Turkey's state broadcaster] being prosecuted for the reports we sourced from them?"
Eray Ertürk, one of the defendants and a founding member of the Zafer Party, challenged the charges, stating, “You say it’s a chain of crimes, but if there is no crime, how can there be a chain?”
Batuhan Çolak, in his defense statement, also highlighted that none of his reports had been refuted by official authorities. "The reporters are being tried. When we were detained, they gave us only one spoon for 35 people in the cell. People aren’t staying silent anymore, and neither will we," he said.
Serkan Kafkas, another Ajans Muhbir administrator, remarked, “When collecting taxes, the state recognizes us, but when we publish news, they pretend they don’t know us. Every one of the 40 reports we published was accurate. So the state is basically saying, ‘Yes, the news is true, but why did you publish it?’”
After nearly five hours of deliberations, the court sentenced Çardaklı and Kafkas to one year, 11 months, and 12 days in prison for “publicly disseminating misleading information.” However, the court ruled to suspend the sentences. Meanwhile, Eray Ertürk and Batuhan Çolak were acquitted of all charges.
Throughout the trial, defense attorneys argued that the social media posts in question had not been refuted by official authorities and that their clients were engaged in legitimate journalistic activities.
Turkey, home to nearly 4 million refugees—the vast majority of them Syrians—is frequently polarized by debates over immigration. Nationalist and opposition parties often use anti-refugee sentiment as a rallying point, and online discourse around refugees has become increasingly tense in recent years.
