Freelance columnist, commentator and YouTuber Fatih Altaylı was arrested June 22, 2025, on suspicion of “threatening” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He has yet to be indicted and formally charged as of July 2025. He was indicted in Mid-July and the date for the trial's first hearing was set to October 3.
Prosecutors, in the arrest request to the arresting court, argued that Altaylı—one of the most popular commentators in Turkey, with 1.6 million YouTube subscribers and 2.8 million X followers—made comments amounting to physical assault in a June 20 video published on his YouTube channel, state-owned media reported.
In the video, Altaylı commented on a public poll in which 70% of Turkish voters indicated that they preferred to vote for another leader after Erdoğan, who won’t be eligible to run in the country’s 2028 elections due to a two-term limit. In his commentary, Altaylı said the Turkish people “love the ballot box” and wouldn’t want to abandon the right to determine their own future. He added, “This nation is a nation that strangled their sultan when they didn’t like things; didn’t want him. A nation that booed their sultan.”
Altaylı told the authorities that he neither threatened nor insulted Erdoğan, and he was talking about basic historical facts that every Turkish citizen knows about.
CPJ’s emailed request for comment on Altaylı’s arrest from the chief prosecutor’s office in Istanbul did not receive a reply.