CPJ, partners call for release of Turkish journalist İsmail Arı
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined eight other local and international press freedom and human rights organizations in calling on Turkish authorities to release daily BirGün reporter İsmail Arı, who was arrested pending trial last week. Arı’s arrest was based on a 2022 disinformation law that introduced prison sentences of up to three years for…
Reporter İsmail Arı imprisoned in Turkey for spreading ‘disinformation’
Istanbul, March 23, 2026—Turkish authorities must immediately release journalist İsmail Arı and stop misusing the disinformation law, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday. Arı, a reporter for the leftist daily BirGün, was taken into custody in the northern province of Tokat, where he was visiting family on March 21. He was taken to Ankara the…
Turkey’s most frequently arrested reporter, Furkan Karabay, under house arrest
Istanbul, January 26, 2026—Turkish authorities should immediately cancel the order of house arrest for reporter Furkan Karabay and let him do his job, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday. Police in Istanbul took Karabay, a court reporter currently with the news website Medyascope, into custody and a court placed him under house arrest on the suspicion of “publicly spreading…
Moldovan media caught between democracy and Russian interference
The building that houses Moldova’s oldest investigative newspaper, Ziarul de Gardă, founded in 2004, is in a small courtyard near one of the busy thoroughfares in central Chișinău, the capital. Alina Radu, the award-winning newspaper’s director, is busy checking the latest issue that just came out in print. Ziarul de Gardă’s current burning topic has…
How the Taliban’s propaganda empire consumed Afghan media
In four years, the Taliban have annihilated Afghanistan’s independent media sector and supplanted it with their own propaganda empire and sophisticated digital bots that flood social media with pro-Taliban content. CPJ interviewed 10 Afghan journalists, inside and outside the country, who said that independent media, which used to reach millions of people, have largely been…
Ethiopian journalist Ahmed Awga sentenced to 2 years in prison
Nairobi, May 30, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is dismayed by an Ethiopian regional court’s decision to sentence Jigjiga Television Network founder Ahmed Awga to two years in jail on charges of disseminating hateful information via a Facebook post he did not author. On May 22, the Fafen Zone High Court in Jigjiga, the capital…
Turkey investigates Kurdish journalist for ‘spreading disinformation’ over crime reporting
Istanbul, September 23, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists urged the Turkish authorities on Monday to drop the disinformation investigation into Rabia Önver, a reporter for the pro-Kurdish news website JİNNEWS, and stop using house raids to harass journalists. “The police raid of JİNNEWS reporter Rabia Önver’s house was completely unjustified for an alleged disinformation investigation…
Turkish journalist Sinan Aygül sentenced to 10 months in prison under new disinformation law
Tatvan, Turkey, February 28, 2023 – A court in Turkey on Tuesday, February 28, sentenced journalist Sinan Aygül to 10 months in prison for allegedly spreading disinformation, according to news reports. Aygül is the first journalist prosecuted under Turkey’s new disinformation amendment, passed in October 2022, that CPJ has documented. He remains free pending an…
Turkish journalist Sinan Aygül arrested under new ‘disinformation’ law
Istanbul, December 15, 2022 – Turkish authorities should immediately release journalist Sinan Aygül and reform the country’s new anti-disinformation law to ensure that it is not used to harass and imprison members of the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. On Wednesday, December 14, authorities in the eastern province of Bitlis arrested Aygül,…
Turkish legislators introduce disinformation bill, seek more online control
Istanbul, June 1, 2022 – Turkish lawmakers must reject a proposed law aimed at combating disinformation, as it is vague and will serve as an additional tool for prosecuting journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday. On May 27, lawmakers from Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) and their ally, the Nationalist Movement…