Öznur Değer, news director for the pro-Kurdish site JİNNEWS, is on release pending the outcome of several appeals, including of a guilty verdict in her 2025 trial on charges of making propaganda for the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey designates a terrorist organization.
Değer, who was taken into police custody and arrested in the southeastern city of Mardin, in February 2025, was charged with making propaganda for the PKK.
She was released under judicial control in May 2025, pending trial. In October 2025, she was found guilty and sentenced to three years, four months, and 15 days in prison, but she remained free pending appeal. The case is waiting to be heard by an appeals court in Diyarbakır, Değer told CPJ in mid-October 2026.
Another terrorism propaganda case was opened against Değer in September 2026 in the eastern city of Van based on her posts on X. CPJ inspected the one-and-a-half- page indictment, in which the prosecution argues that Değer praises the PKK in four posts and one repost. Değer pleaded not guilty in her testimony to authorities and said none of the posts in question were in any way criminal. The first hearing is set for January 19, 2027.
As of October 2026, Değer was also appealing verdicts in several other criminal cases.
Case history
In the four-page indictment for the PKK-related charges, reviewed by CPJ, prosecutors said PKK-related news, photographs, and videos that Değer had posted on the social media platform X between 2021 and 2024 were terrorism propaganda. The indictment also said Değer was under investigation for “insulting a public officer,” after the officer filed a complaint about comments she made at a wake in December 2024.
Değer was previously detained in October 2022 and spent seven months in jail until May 2023, awaiting trial for membership in a terrorist organization. She was found guilty in June 2024 and sentenced to six years and three months but was not jailed while she appealed the judgment. The case is awaiting a hearing at the Supreme Court of Appeals, Değer told CPJ in mid-October 2026.
Separately, Değer was also prosecuted in April 2026 for “resisting arrest” and “insulting” the police during the February 2025 raid on her house. This trial began on July 14, 2026, she told CPJ, and the second hearing is due on October 20, 2026.
Meanwhile, the trial for “insulting” a police officer, regarding the interaction at a funeral home in December 2024, began in Mardin on July 26, 2026, she told CPJ, and will continue in December 2026.
In addition, Değer has been charged with “making targets of those who were tasked to combat terrorism” in a story she published in JİNNEWS on July 16, 2024; the article concerned a criminal complaint filed that day against the commander of a gendarmerie unit (the military police responsible for rural areas) on allegations of torture during a house raid in Mardin. The commander filed a criminal complaint of his own against Değer for that story.
In this case, Değer was found guilty on October 6, 2026, and handed a sentence of one year and six months but remained free pending appeal. The appeal will be heard in by a local appeals court, Değer told CPJ in mid-October 2026. Another journalist, the pro-Kurdish daily Yeni Yaşam’s former news editor Osman Akın, was also sentenced to 10 months in prison on the same charge for their coverage of the same story.
In 2024, Değer was acquitted on charges of “violating the law for gatherings and demonstrations" and “resisting” the police at a political rally that took place in Ankara in November 2021.
CPJ’s email requesting comment from Turkey’s Justice Ministry in October 2025 did not receive a reply.