Merdan YANARDAĞ

On 10 December 2024, writer and PEN Türkiye member Merdan Yanardağ was retried in Istanbul on charges of insulting the Turkish nation, the Republic of Türkiye, the institutions and organs of the state (Article 301 of Türkiye’s Penal Code), in relation to his column ‘Düzenin Mafyalaşması’ (The Mafia-ization of the System), published in May 2021. Yanardağ had previously been sentenced to seven months and 15 days in prison, with the verdict overturned on appeal. The hearing was adjourned to 22 May 2025.  

Yanardağ’s appeal against a separate conviction, imposed on 4 October 2023 after a court in Istanbul found him guilty of ‘making propaganda for a terrorist organisation’, also continued at the end of the year. The court had sentenced him to two years and six months in prison and ordered his release. Yanardağ, editor-in-chief of TELE 1 broadcaster, had been detained in Istanbul on 26 June 2023 by counterterrorism officers after the public prosecutor’s office launched an investigation into a 20 June 2023 broadcast on TELE 1 in which Yanardağ spoke about the peace process between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which broke down in July 2015. (See Case List 2023/2024) 

Merdan Yanardağ, born on 24 February 1961, is a prominent journalist, writer, and member of PEN Türkiye. He is the editor-in-chief of TELE1, one of the few remaining news outlets critical of the Turkish authorities.