Justice System and Everyday Life in Türkiye
🌍 Magnitude 4.2 Earthquake Strikes Off Antalya’s Kaş District
A magnitude 4.2 earthquake struck off the coast of Kaş district in Antalya at 22:35 on 2 April, according to AFAD. The quake occurred at a depth of 28.44 kilometres. No reports of damage or casualties have been issued.
🌍 Magnitude 4.2 Earthquake Hits Balıkesir’s Sındırgı District
A magnitude 4.2 earthquake struck Sındırgı district in Balıkesir at 21:22 on 2 April, according to AFAD. The quake was relatively shallow, at a depth of 10.55 kilometres. No reports of damage or casualties have been issued.
⚖️ Bar Association Chief Calls for Disciplinary Action Against Judges Who Ignored First Constitutional Court Ruling on Gezi Detainee
Turkey’s Bar Association president Erinç Sağkan has called on the Council of Judges and Prosecutors to initiate disciplinary proceedings against the judges who failed to implement the Constitutional Court’s first rights violation ruling in the case of Tayfun Kahraman, a Gezi Park trial detainee, after the court issued a second ruling finding his rights had again been breached. Sağkan said the failure to comply with the initial ruling cannot be dismissed as a matter of judicial discretion, and that the Constitutional Court should itself refer the matter to the HSK given that the second ruling effectively confirms the judges committed a disciplinary offence by causing a rights violation. Drawing a parallel with the Can Atalay case, in which a man elected to parliament whilst detained was not released and subsequently stripped of his seat despite Constitutional Court orders, Sağkan warned that if this pattern continues, Turkey’s entire individual application system will be rendered meaningless.
⚖️ Constitutional Court Issues Second Rights Violation Ruling for Gezi Detainee Kahraman After Lower Court Refused to Obey First
Turkey’s Constitutional Court has unanimously found for a second time that the rights of Gezi Park trial detainee Tayfun Kahraman have been violated, after Istanbul 13th Heavy Criminal Court refused to implement the court’s first ruling of 31 July 2025 — which had found his fair trial rights were breached and ordered a retrial — on the grounds that the Constitutional Court is not an appeals or cassation body. The second ruling finds that both the right to individual application and the right to a fair trial have been violated. Kahraman’s wife Meriç Demir Kahraman, who said she learnt of the decision from the press like everyone else, welcomed the ruling and called for it to be published in the Official Gazette without delay so that the retrial and release process can begin. The case has become a focal point for concerns about the enforceability of Constitutional Court rulings in Turkey, drawing comparisons with the Can Atalay case in which similar defiance of court orders was seen.
✍️ ‘I’ve Become Like My Grandmother’: Jailed Journalist İsmail Arı Traces His Family’s History With Unjust Imprisonment
İsmail Arı, the journalist imprisoned on charges he says carry no custodial sentence even if proven, has written from prison about discovering that his family’s encounter with arbitrary detention did not begin with him. In 1998, his grandmother Fadime Arı — then in her mid-sixties — and his aunt were among around a dozen villagers from Çatalbadem in Karaman’s Ermenek district detained after a confrontation with the visiting district governor over plans to change the village’s water source. The women had objected and a minor altercation followed; that evening gendarmerie arrived and took them to the station, from where they were sent to Ermenek prison. His grandmother served six months and his aunt nine. His aunt, still alive, maintains to this day that they resisted nothing and were imprisoned on false pretences; a beaded bird his grandmother made in prison remains a family keepsake. Years into his journalism career, Arı tracked down the former governor — now working in the private sector — and asked him why the village women had been imprisoned. The reply: “Whatever the state did, it did correctly.” Arı writes that he told his father on his first phone call from prison, “I’ve become like grandmother, hasn’t it turned out well,” and that his father could only laugh bitterly. He closes by saying that just as his grandmother’s imprisonment did not stop the village protecting its water source, his own will not stop him practising journalism.
🕵️ How a Crime Gang Infiltrated Bahçeli’s Parliamentary Speech, The WhatsApp Trail Behind Turkey’s Most Alarming Scandal
A detailed reconstruction by journalist Timur Soykan — drawing on the work of now-imprisoned BirGün reporter İsmail Arı — lays out the WhatsApp message trail showing how the Ayhan Bora Kaplan organised crime network orchestrated the imprisonment of the very police officers who had arrested it. The messages, found on a phone belonging to the gang’s second-in-command Serdar Sertçelik that was anonymously delivered to a defence lawyer’s office in September 2025, reveal that the gang’s lawyer Cengiz Haliç coordinated a months-long operation to discredit and detain Ankara deputy police chiefs Murat Çelik and Şevket Demircan by planting false narratives through media contacts, coaching Sertçelik to falsely name senior politicians including a former justice minister, and, most strikingly — arranging for language targeting the police officers as coup plotters to be inserted into MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli’s parliamentary group address of 14 May 2024. The messages show Haliç telling Sertçelik the night before the speech that then-deputy MHP leader İzzet Ulvi Yönter, who recently resigned under cryptic circumstances, was “finishing the text” to be slipped in, that a figure identified only as Veysel Başsavcı had confirmed a prosecutor was ready to act once Bahçeli spoke, and that Bahçeli’s speech was indeed delivered word for word as described. The indictment filed in March 2026 charged six people including Kaplan but omitted the politicians, judges, and media figures named in the messages, a fact critics describe as deliberate censorship. İsmail Arı, who broke the story, was arrested eleven days before this reconstruction was published.
Politics
🚢 Turkey Insists Montreux Convention Is Non-Negotiable as Defence Ministry Clarifies Black Sea Command Arrangements
Turkey’s Ministry of National Defence has moved to quell public debate over its role in NATO and coalition military structures in the Black Sea region, issuing a detailed statement insisting that the Montreux Convention will not be compromised under any circumstances and that all planning is conducted in accordance with the principle of regional ownership by littoral states. The statement clarifies that the Maritime Component Command being established in Istanbul is part of the Multinational Force Ukraine — a non-NATO voluntary coalition currently with 33 participating countries — rather than a NATO structure, with its operational headquarters based in Paris. Turkey will lead the naval planning dimension, and naval platform contributions will be limited to the three Black Sea littoral states: Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria. A separate Multinational Corps headquarters is also being established in Adana. The ministry said agreement on this framework was reached at an Ankara meeting in April 2025, and that the maritime command has been staffed entirely by Turkish personnel since August 2025. Turkey separately reaffirmed its consistent application of Montreux during the Russia-Ukraine war as having prevented the conflict from spreading to the naval dimension.
📰 Press Freedom Body Writes to Google Chief Over Algorithm Changes That Devastated Turkey’s Independent Media
The International Press Institute has written to Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai demanding answers over a series of Google Search and Discover algorithm updates that it says inflicted traffic losses of between 60 and 80 per cent on Turkey’s remaining independent news outlets between August 2024 and March 2025, contributing to the closure of Gazete Duvar and threatening the economic survival of other independent newsrooms. The IPI identifies two systemic failures in the current algorithm: a tendency to reward SEO-driven sites that aggregate or copy original reporting over the outlets that produced it — citing Halk TV investigative reports as a documented example — and a pattern in which visibility has become concentrated among pro-government outlets whilst independent ones are suppressed. The letter raises particular concern about the timing of the traffic collapses coinciding with Turkey’s Digital Copyright Law debates, and asks Google to confirm there is no link between the two. IPI is calling on Google to share raw traffic and ranking data for Turkish news outlets, commission and publish an independent risk assessment of the differential impact on independent versus state-aligned media, and ensure independent outlets are not excluded from copyright licensing negotiations. The organisation says it will treat Google’s response — or absence of one — as part of its ongoing public record on platform algorithms and press freedom.
TBMM
🏛️ Parliament Descends Into Extraordinary Abuse as MPs Trade Insults Including ‘Pimp’, ‘Scoundrel’ and ‘Bloodsucker’
A debate over the omnibus economic bill in the Grand National Assembly degenerated into one of the most vitriolic exchanges in recent parliamentary memory, with MPs from DEM Party and İYİ Party trading a torrent of personal abuse that was recorded verbatim in the official Hansard. The row began when DEM Party’s Sırrı Sakık criticised instructions from Ankara banning Selahattin Demirtaş posters at Nowruz events, saying “damn your Ankara” — a phrase that drew furious objections from İYİ Party’s Turhan Çömez, who declared Ankara the heart of the Turkish nation and would never be damned. The exchange then spiralled, with MPs variously calling each other terbiyesiz (ill-mannered), alçak (lowlife), namussuz (dishonourable), pezevenk (pimp), yavşak (creep), zibidi (scoundrel), and kan emici (bloodsucker), with several also invoking each other’s fathers. On the legislative substance, an amendment was adopted granting disabled individuals with orthopedic impairments of 40 per cent or more — who cannot obtain a driving licence on account of their disability — the right to purchase a vehicle free of special consumption tax once every ten years. A CHP proposal to levy tax on luxury wristwatches was rejected.
📋 Omnibus Economic Bill Passes Parliament: Conscription Exemption Fee Rises to 417,000 Lira, Precious Stones Tax Dropped
Turkey’s Grand National Assembly has passed the omnibus economic bill, with the conscription exemption fee rising 25 per cent to approximately 417,000 lira — calculated as 300,000 times the civil servant monthly coefficient — of which the portion equivalent to 240,000 times the coefficient goes to the general budget and the remainder to the Defence Industries Support Fund. Among the bill’s other provisions: gambling and betting advertising expenditure becomes non-deductible for both income and corporate tax purposes; foundation university hospital corporate tax exemptions end and their VAT exemptions are removed; free trade zone manufacturers retain tax exemptions on exports; BOTAŞ’s accumulated tax debts are written off against its Treasury receivables through to end-2026; disabled individuals with orthopedic impairments of 40 per cent or more who cannot obtain a driving licence receive a once-per-decade vehicle purchase VAT exemption in line with a Constitutional Court ruling; and earthquake zone residents who pay off their government-built housing or business debts in a lump sum by end-2026 receive discounts of up to 74 per cent on residential and 48 per cent on commercial premises. The precious stones excise tax clause was removed before the final vote. Parliament adjourned until Tuesday 7 April.
📱 Clause Giving BTK Power to Suspend Social Networks and Game Platforms Pulled From Bill
A provision that would have granted Turkey’s Information Technologies and Communications Authority sweeping new powers — including the ability to suspend the operations of social media platforms and game distributors active in Turkey — has been withdrawn from an omnibus bill under consideration in parliament’s Health Committee, to be reconsidered at a later stage. The removed article would have required platforms to analyse and report the risks posed by their services to BTK, which could then demand changes to how services are provided or order their suspension entirely. Several other articles in the bill were amended rather than withdrawn, including clarifications to definitions distinguishing game developers, distributors, and platforms, and revisions to bandwidth throttling provisions to ensure they are proportionate and graduated rather than effectively amounting to a blanket access block.
📱 Parliament Passes Bill Banning Social Media for Under-15s and Extending Maternity Leave to 16 Weeks
Turkey’s parliament has approved a wide-ranging social services bill that introduces a minimum age of 15 for social media use, extends paid post-natal leave for female civil servants from 8 to 16 weeks, and brings in new employment guarantees for young people who grew up in state care. Social media platforms will be required to implement age verification measures and may not provide services to children under 15, whilst those aged 15 to 17 must be offered a separate, age-appropriate service with parental control tools covering account settings, spending limits, and usage time monitoring. Platforms with over 10 million daily users in Turkey will be required to comply with content removal orders within one hour; failure to pay fines within 30 days triggers an advertising ban, and continued non-compliance can lead to bandwidth throttling of 50 per cent rising to 90 per cent following court applications by the telecoms regulator BTK. The provisions take effect six months after publication. On maternity leave, female civil servants will now receive 8 weeks before and 16 weeks after birth — a total of 24 weeks — up from the previous 16 weeks total. Foster carers without social security coverage will have their voluntary insurance premiums subsidised by the state. Young people who spent at least five years in state care and meet educational and age requirements will be entitled to public sector employment under a new quota of one per thousand of filled public service posts, with five years of social security premium support also provided for those entering the private sector.
👦 ‘If I’d Gone to School’: Research on 610 Imprisoned Children Reveals Poverty, Broken Families and Peer Pressure as Root Causes
A parliamentary commission on children drawn into crime has heard the results of academic research conducted with 610 detained and convicted children aged 12 to 17, painting a stark picture of educational failure and social deprivation. The research found that 51 per cent of the children had dropped out of school entirely and 47.9 per cent were not attending at all. When asked what would have prevented them from offending, the children gave answers including “if my mother and father hadn’t died,” “if my mother hadn’t remarried and her new husband hadn’t beaten me,” “if I’d gone to school,” “if I’d been successful at school,” “if I’d had healthier friends around me,” and “if I’d been richer, if I’d had money.” Professor Betül Ulukol told the commission that around 27.8 per cent of the children had fully internalised responsibility for their situation, saying things like “if I hadn’t made friends with those kids” or “if I’d listened to my parents” — a group she said were good candidates for rehabilitation and unlikely to reoffend if given appropriate support. The research identified negative peer environment as the single highest risk factor. DEM Party MP Beritan Güneş drew attention to the fact that 87.1 per cent of the children said they had been working, and argued that the data confirms crime is a social and systemic outcome rather than an individual failing, questioning why the education system never asks where school dropouts have gone and why the response to child crime defaults to punishment rather than strengthening social welfare mechanisms.
🕌 Diyanet Deputy Chief Tells Parliament He Never Called Erdoğan for a Favour — and That Proves There’s No Nepotism
Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs appeared before a parliamentary foreign affairs subcommittee to discuss its overseas operations, but the session was dominated by questions about internal nepotism after a CHP MP cited an internal staff survey finding that cronyism is the single biggest grievance among Diyanet employees. Deputy President Fatih Mehmet Karaca pushed back, arguing that complaints about nepotism typically come from people who failed to advance through the system and are looking for excuses, and offered his own career as proof that the institution operates on merit: he noted that he had been appointed deputy president despite being a personal acquaintance of President Erdoğan from his school days — describing Erdoğan as someone he called “elder brother” as a student — without ever once calling him or any of his other well-connected relatives and friends to seek preferment. He also cited a 52-second congratulatory phone call to the new Diyanet president as evidence he does not lobby for positions. On overseas activities, the directorate’s foreign relations director Ensari Yentürk said Diyanet currently has 2,430 staff abroad across 77 religious affairs counsellor and 54 attaché posts, that mosques overseas are built with charitable donations rather than state funds, and that its presence in countries such as Iran is purely diplomatic and inter-institutional in nature — providing no religious services to the public there.
Ruling Government (AKP, MHP and DEM coalition aka People’s Alliance)
🇨🇾 AKP Condemns Attack on Turkish Cypriot Citizens by EOKA Supporters
AKP spokesman Ömer Çelik has condemned an attack on citizens of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus by supporters of the EOKA terrorist organisation, calling for those responsible to be held accountable before the law and reaffirming Turkey’s unconditional support for Turkish Cypriots.
🗳️ AKP and MHP Begin Assembling Election-Ready Cadres as Ankara Whispers of Cabinet Reshuffle
Political activity in Ankara is picking up pace, with ruling coalition sources indicating that both AKP and MHP are preparing significant organisational overhauls aimed at fielding what insiders are calling an “election cadre” — personnel better suited to voter outreach and the political language of the coming period. AKP is expected to press ahead with restructuring at provincial and district level that goes beyond mere personnel changes, targeting what the party describes as a stronger on-the-ground presence with a new vision and tone. MHP is said to be focusing particularly on eastern and south-eastern Anatolia, with the reorganisation there explicitly linked to the Kurdish peace process and aimed at reinforcing the party’s regional political message. A limited cabinet reshuffle is also being discussed in Ankara corridors, described as a targeted update based on performance and new-term objectives rather than a sweeping clear-out. Parliamentary activity is expected to accelerate from next week, with a dense legislative agenda covering economic, social policy, and security measures — and predictions of heated plenary debates to come. Taken together, sources say the convergence of legislative momentum, a symbolic cabinet adjustment, and deep party restructuring signals the opening of a new political phase for the governing coalition.
Opposition Parties (CHP and others)
⚖️ 18 Defendants Released From Istanbul Trial Custody — But 89 Remain, and CHP Says Joy Is Bittersweet
Istanbul 40th Heavy Criminal Court has ordered the release of 18 of the 107 defendants held in pre-trial detention in the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality case, a number exceeding the prosecution’s own request of seven releases. Those freed include Mahir Gün, the social media fan account administrator whose continued detention İmamoğlu had publicly called cruel days earlier, as well as Kadriye Kasapoğlu, Ebubekir Akın, and 15 others. CHP responded with a string of statements describing the mood as one of muted relief: Istanbul provincial chair Özgür Çelik said “our joy is bittersweet, our hope alive,” noting that 89 defendants remain in custody. Party figures including Mahmut Tanal argued bluntly that 18 releases from 107 detentions is a limited correction, not justice, and that pre-trial detention is meant to be the exception rather than the rule. Parliamentary group deputy chair Gökhan Günaydın asked publicly whether it had ever been necessary to hold these 18 people at all, and whether public order would genuinely have been threatened had they been tried without detention from the start. İmamoğlu’s wife Dilek Kaya İmamoğlu wrote that witnessing the releases was a moment of hope, but said that for every reunion at the Silivri gates, her heart remains with those still inside — adding that using “precautionary measures” to punish people who should never have been detained will leave a mark on Turkey’s legal history that will be difficult to erase.
✍️ Jailed Antalya Mayor Böcek Writes From Prison to Deny Justice Minister’s Claim He Paid for His Candidacy
Antalya Metropolitan Mayor Muhittin Böcek has broken his silence from prison with an open letter responding to Justice Minister Akın Gürlek’s allegation that he paid money to secure his candidacy, flatly denying the claim and saying that anyone who makes such an accusation without being able to prove it is “a lowlife, a dishonourable person.” Böcek, who has been in pre-trial detention for nine months and says he has been hospitalised ten times with his medication count rising from 12 to 22 drugs, wrote that he has stood as a candidate six times across his career — under Turgut Özal’s ANAP, Mesut Yılmaz, and successive CHP leaders including Kılıçdaroğlu, Meral Akşener, and now Özgür Özel — and won all six elections, saying he has never paid a single kuruş for a candidacy and staking his honour on that claim. He also defended his staff, who were taken to Istanbul and detained alongside him, saying their only offence was accompanying him around the clock to earthquake, flood, and fire disaster zones. Gürlek had claimed there is evidence in the case file relating to an alleged payment at a petrol station in Manisa in January 2024 in connection with Böcek’s candidacy — an allegation Böcek says is slander that will be answered before both human courts and divine justice.
⚖️ Murat Ongun Refuses Release Request Until Detained Female Colleagues Are Freed First — as Lawyers Allege Courtroom Surveillance
The fifteenth day of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality trial produced a series of striking moments during the bail application hearings for remaining detained defendants. Most notably, the lawyer for Medya AŞ chairman Murat Ongun told the court that her client had explicitly instructed her not to seek his own release until the detained female employees of Medya AŞ are freed first — a statement that drew significant attention in the courtroom. In another memorable submission, the lawyer for IBB planning director Ramazan Gülten pointed out that his client, supposedly placed within Fatih Keleş’s organisational hierarchy, has not a single phone or location record linking him to Keleş — and that his only contact with İmamoğlu in the entire indictment is a get-well phone call İmamoğlu made after Gülten was assaulted while demolishing illegal structures on the Üsküdar waterfront, a call the indictment nevertheless cites as evidence of criminal organisation. Gülten’s lawyer closed by noting that his client has spent his imprisonment writing a children’s fairy tale book, asking rhetorically whether a crime organisation member writes fairy tales. The lawyer for İBB Sports Club president Fatih Keleş raised a separate alarm, telling the court that black cameras had been installed beneath the existing white cameras in the courtroom the previous day in positions that could capture lawyers’ computer screens, and that the defence team believes it is being placed under pressure — a concern the presiding judge dismissed as a security measure. The same lawyer also told the court that the prosecutor had admitted before the original detention hearing that his file consisted solely of witness statements with no other evidence, saying this was recorded in the official minutes.
Economy
📦 Turkish Exports Fall 6.4% in March as Middle East War and Long Holidays Take Their Toll
Turkey’s goods exports fell 6.4 per cent year-on-year in March 2026 to $21.9 billion, a drop of approximately $1.5 billion, Trade Minister Ömer Bolat announced, attributing the decline to the impact of the regional war, long public holidays, and calendar effects, as well as a $350 million fall in processed gold exports. Exports to Gulf countries dropped 40 per cent over the past month as the Hormuz Strait closure disrupted regional trade. For the first quarter as a whole, exports were down 3.1 per cent, a shortfall of roughly $2 billion, though Bolat expressed confidence this would be recovered in April and said Turkey’s export coverage ratio of 73.4 per cent remains comfortably above the 70 per cent threshold the ministry considers reassuring. The annualised trade deficit stands at around $98 billion. Defence industry products were the strongest-performing export category in the first quarter, up approximately $500 million, whilst precious and semi-precious stones led import growth with a $1.7 billion increase. Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, and France were Turkey’s top five export destinations in the first three months, with the EU remaining Turkey’s largest trading partner and Turkey recording a $1.4 billion surplus in its EU trade.
Thanks for reading this far. If we all make it through whatever Iran, the US, Israel, and Turkish politics throw at us this weekend, see you Monday. ☕