Elif Üngür, a former host for a TV show on culture and ecology for the local PIYA production company, is on release pending trial after she was taken into police custody – alongside 14 other Kurdish journalists and a media worker - in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakır in June 2022.
In April 2023, after around 10 months in jail, Üngür, the 15 others who were detained alongside her, plus three other journalists, who were not arrested, were indicted on the charge of “being a member of a (terrorist) organization”. Their trial began on July 11, 2023, in Diyarbakır and the next day, it was reported that 15 of the defendants, including Üngür, were released pending the outcome of the trial. Another defendant, Safiye Alagaş, was earlier released pending trial in June.
The trial continues in Diyarbakır with the next hearing set for November 10, 2026.
As of August 2026, Üngür and the other defendants remain under a foreign travel ban.
Case history
On June 8, 2022, Diyarbakır police raided several locations in the city, including journalists’ houses and newsrooms and took into custody 20 journalists and media workers, along with a citizen who was once interviewed by one of the journalists. On June 15, 15 of those journalists, including Üngür, and one media worker were jailed by a court pending trial.
Elif’s sister, Derman Üngür, told online newspaper Gazete Duvar in June 2022 that Elif was not a professional journalist but that she hosted a show on culture and ecology for PIYA for “three to four months” before quitting the job two months prior to her arrest.
PIYA produces Kurdish-focused journalistic content, including documentaries and shows on news, culture, arts, and political debates, and sells the content to European-based, pro-Kurdish broadcasters, her lawyer, Resul Temur, told CPJ.
Derman Üngür told Gazete Duvar that Elif was questioned by the authorities about why she hosted a show about the case of imprisoned Kurdish singer Nûdem Durak, whose situation was brought to the attention of the international community by rock star Roger Waters in early 2022.
Temur told independent news outlet Bianet in 2022 that his clients were questioned about the angle they took on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant group and political party that Turkey classifies as a terrorist group, and whether the content the journalists created for broadcast by European outlets was considered pro-PKK.
Most of the journalists either work for pro-Kurdish media outlets or independent production companies that provide content for other outlets, according to news reports and CPJ’s interviews with local journalists.
Diyarbakır courts denied the journalists’ appeals of their arrests and their pretrial detention in August and September 2022.
CPJ emailed the Turkish Ministry of Justice in October 2022 and September 2026 for comment but did not receive any reply.