On August 13, a Turkish court in the western province of İzmir arrested Dilruba Y., a woman who had criticized the government during a street interview aired on the YouTube channel “Tüylü Mikrofon”. The interview focused on recent restrictions on access to Instagram.
Dilruba Y. was taken into custody at 10:00 a.m. and charged with “insulting the President” and “inciting hatred and hostility among the public.” She was then transferred to the İzmir Courthouse. After appearing before a magistrate, the court ordered her detention pending trial. Following the decision, Dilruba Y. was transferred from the courthouse to a prison.
Uğur Poyraz, the secretary general of Turkey’s nationalist opposition İYİ (Good) Party, criticized the decision to arrest someone for their comments during a street interview. He said: “We do not condone the insults made by the young woman during the interview. However, in a country where perpetrators of violence against women are reconciled at police stations and sent home, and where those who kill or torture animals are released, arresting an ordinary citizen for expressing their emotions while speaking into a microphone on the street, and not merely taking legal action but detaining them, is a clear example of how the law is wielded as a weapon against dissent and how this has become normalized.”
Ebubekir Şahin, the head of Turkey’s state-run Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), recently stated that street interviews or broadcasts labeled as “citizen opinions” on new media platforms would come under their scrutiny. He added: “These types of broadcasts and posts often present the views of individuals as if they represent the majority opinion or the voice of the public, which leads to disinformation with their subjective and intentionally misleading nature.”
