Yelis Ayaz, publisher and editor-in-chief for the local newspaper Aydınpost, in the western province of Aydın, was arrested pending trial by a court on May 15, 2026, on suspicion of “publicly spreading disinformation” regarding reports on a politician’s son who was allegedly bringing weapons to school. An Aydın court released Ayaz on June 1, pending her trial, which was set to start on June 30. She was charged with “publicly spreading disinformation” and “insult.”
Ayaz wrote a column on April 20 regarding the allegations, without mentioning that the student was the son of Seda Sarıbaş, a parliamentary deputy of Aydın for the leading Justice and Development Party (AKP). She was briefly detained afterwards but released after being questioned by a prosecutor, her lawyer said.
Aydınpost published a story on May 14 reporting that the underage son of Sarıbaş was bringing a knife and a gun to school. In another column by Ayaz, published after her arrest, she stood by her story and said that multiple parents from the school had filed complaints about the student.
Sarıbaş said in a post on X on May 15 that she was targeted for “character assassination” by fake news, without mentioning Ayaz.
Introduced in late 2022, the disinformation law dictates that anyone found guilty of publicly spreading false information in order to cause concern, fear, or panic will face a sentence of one to three years in prison. While supporters of the legislation at the time offered reassurances that the law would not be used against journalists, it has since become one of the most frequently used laws against the media.
The Aydın chief public prosecutor’s office released a written statement on the day of Ayaz’s arrest arguing that the journalist’s reporting was untrue and that the complaints were about a toy gun brought to the school.