Nalin Öztekin
Melek Avcı, a reporter for the feminist news agency JINNEWS, was acquitted on Thursday by a court in Ankara in a case where she was charged with "terrorism propaganda" based on her social media activity. The verdict was issued during the second hearing of the case at the Ankara 19th High Criminal Court.
The charges stemmed from a case filed by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, which targeted several of Avcı's news-related posts. Her attorney, Şevin Kaya, attended the hearing, during which the prosecutor also called for Avcı’s acquittal in their final opinion.
“Journalistic work has been criminalized”
In her defense, Kaya argued that the indictment was built on a biased preliminary report prepared by police. She noted that among the contested posts was a shared interview with Salih Muslim, a senior Syrian Kurdish political figure, which was not even conducted by Avcı herself.
“One of the posts is an interview with Salih Muslim. But this was not an interview my client conducted — she simply shared someone else’s work,” Kaya said. “Even if she had done the interview herself, we have past examples like Mehmet Ali Birand’s interview with Abdullah Öcalan. Press freedom cannot be bent to fit political convenience. My client was serving the public’s right to access information. We request her acquittal.”
The court ruled in favor of Avcı, finding no grounds to convict her on the propaganda charge.
Background
A criminal investigation was launched against Melek Avcı in 2024 on suspicion of “terrorist propaganda.” The evidence was gathered through online surveillance, part of the now-defunct “virtual patrol” system, which had previously been annulled by Turkey’s Constitutional Court due to privacy concerns. The police report prepared during the investigation formed the basis of the indictment.
The evidence cited in the case included posts with anti-ISIS messages, a shared interview with Salih Muslim, and news content referencing statements by international bodies like the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) about the use of chemical weapons. Both Avcı and her lawyer argued during the trial that the posts were shared strictly for journalistic purposes.
