Merdan YANARDAĞ
Image Credit: Umut Çolak/WikkiCommons
Writer, PEN Türkiye member and editor-in-chief of TELE1 broadcaster, Merdan Yanardağ was detained by police at his home in Istanbul on 24 October 2025 and formally arrested on 27 October on charges of ‘espionage’ under Article 328.1 of Türkiye’s Criminal Code, which carries between 15 and 20 years in prison. He denies any wrongdoing. The investigation, which sees him accused of ‘manipulating the 2019 local elections in cooperation with foreign intelligence services’ relates to Istanbul’s Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who has been held in pre-trial detention on politically-motivated grounds since March 2025, triggering mass protests across Türkiye. The authorities subsequently appointed a trustee to TELE 1 – one of the few remaining critical news outlets in the country – prompting the collective resignation of TELE 1 staff amid a national outcry.
Yanardağ and TELE1 have been repeatedly targeted by the authorities of Türkiye over many years, including through arbitrary fines and criminal prosecution. On 4 October 2023, a court in Istanbul found Yanardağ guilty of ‘making propaganda for a terrorist organisation,’ and sentenced him to 30 months in prison, for comments about the peace process between the government and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in a June 2023 TELE 1. He was detained for over 100 days (see Case List 2025). On 3 November 2025, Türkiye’s Constitutional Court ruled that Yanardağ’s pre-trial detention violated his right to liberty and security and ordered the government to pay 166,500 Turkish lira (approximately USD3,950) in compensation.
In a separate case, Yanardağwas retried, after a previous conviction was overturned, on charges ofinsulting the Turkish nation, the Republic of Türkiye, the institutions and organs of the state (Article 301 of Türkiye’s Penal Code), in relation to his column ‘Düzenin Mafyalaşması’ (The Mafia-ization of the System), published in May 2021. The retrial resulted in his acquittal on 25 September 2025.
Merdan Yanardağ, born on 24 February 1961, is a prominent journalist, writer, and member of PEN Türkiye.