Prison sentence requested for Oğuzhan Uğur

Following the February 6, 2023 earthquakes, Oğuzhan Uğur made posts on his social media account claiming that dams had cracked. An investigation was launched into Oğuzhan Uğur, and it has been requested that he be sentenced to up to 4 years and 6 months in prison for the crime of 'publicly disseminating misleading information through press and media'.

An investigation was initiated against social media influencer Oğuzhan Uğur on the grounds that posts were made from the account named 'BaBala TV', which he owns, on the day after the two major earthquakes that occurred on February 6, 2023, claiming that a dam had burst in the Kumçatı village of Kahramanmaraş and that the Yarseli Dam in Antakya, Hatay had cracked, and that these posts caused fear and panic among citizens in the earthquake zone, leading to disruptions in search and rescue efforts.

The investigation conducted by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office regarding the matter has been completed. In the prepared indictment, 8 people are listed as 'complainants', while Oğuzhan Uğur, Kaan Kayacan, and Ercan Özdemir are listed as 'suspects'.

The indictment states that following the two major earthquakes of 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude that occurred in Kahramanmaraş on February 6, 2023, posts were made on the 'BaBaLa TV' social media account on February 7 stating, 'Urgent - A dam has burst in Kumçatı village in Kahramanmaraş Türkoğlu Nurdağı and it is flooding, communication for officials only' and 'The Hatay Antakya Yarseli dam has cracked, for God's sake send a team here, it is raining heavily'. It was stated that after these posts, reports were made in the media that no such situation had occurred, and that due to these allegations, search and rescue activities in the earthquake zone were disrupted and the posts caused fear and panic among the public.

In the indictment, which includes the statement of suspect Oğuzhan Uğur, it is recorded that suspect Uğur stated that his own team made the posts from the account in question and said, 'After the earthquake, volunteers came to join our team working at BaBaLa TV. We provided space for the volunteers to work. There was no specific person coordinating the tweeting section. Before we started working with the team, we warned them not to share any posts on Twitter that had not been verified. A team of 30-35 people authorized to make phone calls were relaying the news they received to our team of approximately 15 people authorized to tweet. After the posts were made, once information about such public unrest reached us, we conducted checks and reached the audio recording and verification of the posts made. This person is suspect Ercan Özdemir, who is on the phone call team. Özdemir spoke with a woman who said she worked at the Ministry of Culture; information was obtained that the woman worked at the Ministry, and after this verification, the tweet regarding the Yarseli Dam was posted. As far as I remember, the suspect who posted the tweet is Özdemir. I do not know who posted the tweet regarding Nurdağı. Although the tweets were posted on February 7, the fact that the footage of the public being incited and fleeing belongs to February 11 is proof that we did not have the intention of causing public unrest. I did not make the 3 posts made from the account. There is a team that stayed awake for days with the intention of helping. We supported the collection of millions of liras for the region. Our only goal was to help the people in the region who were victims of the earthquake.'

'I do not have the authority to tweet'

In the statement given by one of the suspects, Ercan Özdemir, it was noted, 'After I spoke with the woman on the phone, I forwarded the information she gave me to the verification team. I do not know what the verification team and the team that posts tweets did in the next stage, but I definitely did not post any tweets. Even if Oğuzhan Uğur said in his statement that I posted the tweet, this is not true because I do not have the authority to post tweets. I do not accept the accusations.'

The indictment recorded that posts were made from the social media account named BaBaLa TV in a manner capable of disturbing public peace and that they were contrary to the truth, that the user of the social media account was Oğuzhan Uğur, and that in a petition submitted by suspect Uğur through his lawyer some time after his statement, he stated that the tweets were posted by suspect Kaan Kayacan, while suspect Kayacan stated that he did not remember this matter.

What had happened?

It was announced that an investigation had been launched by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office regarding the fact that posts were made from the Twitter account named "BaBala TV" claiming that the wall of the Hatay Yarseli Dam in Kahramanmaraş had cracked while search and rescue activities were being carried out following the 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes that affected 10 provinces centered in Kahramanmaraş, and that these posts caused fear and panic among the disaster-stricken citizens in the earthquake zone.

The prosecutor's office had launched an ex officio investigation into Oğuzhan Uğur and other responsible persons on the allegation of "publicly disseminating misleading information".