Neither Ömer Çelik nor Ümit Özlale could be questioned

 When AKP Spokesperson Ömer Çelik appeared before journalists at a press conference, two days had passed since the New Party Spokesperson Zeynel Emre had made an allegation regarding him.

    A Bengü Türk reporter, while significantly softening and generalizing the allegation, asked at the press conference: “AKP bureaucrat Osman Arıkan Nacar went on vacation in Bodrum with Ömer Çelik shortly before fleeing abroad following a 20 billion lira fund embezzlement scandal.”

    “First the New Party figures, and then New Party Chairman Özgür Özel made some statements and allegations targeting the President, the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Treasury and Finance, and yourself regarding the fund crisis; what would you say?” 

    While Ömer Çelik replied, “I don’t understand the stock market business, and I have never had a stock market account,” he did not actually answer the question. Normally, it would be expected for journalists to interject and ask again, attempting to clarify whether he “went on vacation with Nacar” and the status of Nacar, but this was not done. 

     The second incident demonstrating the weakening of the reflex to ask questions, which is the essence of journalism, occurred at a press conference held by New Party İzmir Deputy Ümit Özlale at the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM), where he directed accusations in the form of questions to two ministers. 

   When Özlale asked Minister of Trade Ömer Bolat, “Does the 170 million lira transaction in Hedef Portföy belong to you?” there was no sound from the journalists. Özlale even waited for a while, but still, no question came from the journalists watching.

    Yet, in the statement Ömer Bolat made the previous evening following journalist Murat Ağırel’s speech on Sözcü TV, he had stated that “family savings amounting to 37.8 million lira were sitting in a sukuk account (lease certificate) at Hedef Investment Portfolio,” emphasizing that no transactions had been made for 2 years and 8 months, and that the account had not been closed after the investigation. 

  In fact, with this statement, Bolat was indirectly answering the question Özlale had raised in the TBMM General Assembly. Journalists could have reminded him of this answer, or at the very least, asked about the date of the 170 million lira transaction.

   Bolat could also have been asked about the insulting language he used for journalists Murat Ağırel and İsmail Saymaz. Because Ağırel had stated that the minister Özlale meant in his speech at the TBMM was Bolat, and İsmail Saymaz had asked, “Is it Ömer Bolat who put in 400 and took out 800?” Murat Ağırel had replied, “I don’t know that,” without accusing the minister. Journalists could have highlighted this situation with questions at Özlale’s press conference.

   However, Bolat making a statement as if they had made the accusation that he “put in 400 and took out 800” unfortunately became the basis for the “house arrest” sentence given to Murat Ağırel and İsmail Saymaz. 

Journalists Mustafa Balcı and Şaban Sevinç were also arrested simply for sharing a photo on social media taken at a concert in Bodrum where Osman Arıkan Nacar appeared behind Ömer Çelik.

    Limited-responsibility journalism, practiced without asking enough questions, is on top of that under the pressure of unlawful and unfair investigations, detentions, and arrests… 

EKONOMİM’S RESPONSIBILITY TO CORRECT THE ERROR

   The first step that created the enigma of whether former minister and AKP executive Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya and her husband returned the illicit gains they obtained from the funds came from Ekonomim.

   On September 29, 2026, the news “Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya returned 2.2 billion lira!” was published on Ekonomim’s website. This news, which was also published in the printed newspaper the next day, was quoted first in digital media, and then in news television channels and newspapers. The news, which provided the information that “according to information obtained by Ekonomim.com, Kaya and her husband İlyas Kaya transferred approximately 2.2 billion lira to the account notified by the Ministry of Treasury and Finance,” also became the subject of discussion programs on news channels and statements by some figures from the opposition.

    The first objection came from Nagehan Alçı, who said, “I was told by one or two sources I trust that this news is not true.” İsmail Saymaz supported Alçı’s objection the next day by saying that Kaya and her husband had not returned the money. 

   Upon this, the media was divided; some TV programs repeated the information that the money had been returned, while others continued to state that the money had not been returned. Since there was no effort from Ekonomim to defend their news and no concrete statement came from the relevant institutions, five days passed in such an ambiguous manner.

    The state of indecision was clarified somewhat on the evening of October 5, with the announcement that upon the application of Kaya and her husband, the prosecutor’s office had lifted the freeze on their accounts, allowing them to deposit money into the “voluntary return account” opened by the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF). 

    First, DHA announced that Kaya and her husband had deposited the money. Then, Hürriyet and Yeni Şafak also wrote that the amount Kaya and her husband deposited into the account was 1 billion 860 million lira. It was understood that Kaya and her husband were thinking of keeping for themselves not the 2.2 billion lira they withdrew from the fund, but 147 million lira as interest in addition to the 163 million lira principal they put into the fund!

    After this development, Ekonomim, as if they had not been the ones to publish the news on September 29 stating that “Kaya and her husband returned the money” which turned out to be false, published the news “Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya and her husband deposited the money to the TMSF” on the evening of October 5, at almost the same time as DHA. Moreover, the first news was never mentioned in this report. 

     Fortunately, the situation of Kaya and her husband, and the uncertainties regarding their return of a portion of the money they earned from the fund, ended after they were called to testify to the prosecutor’s office.

      The Turkish Journalists’ Declaration of Rights and Responsibilities includes the principle that “A journalist is obliged to correct every error in their publications as soon as possible and to apologize when necessary.” Ekonomim should have re-investigated immediately when criticisms arose and re-informed its readers. Waiting six days without correcting the error and then publishing a new piece of news as if the one that turned out to be false never existed was not right. 

THE STATE OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

   The access ban even on the X account of the Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD) reflects the state of freedom of expression in Turkey. 

    İFÖD is not a political organization. It is an association that aims to protect and develop freedom of expression, media, and Internet freedom in Turkey, and monitors, reports, and announces access bans. There is no judicial authority that claims its activities are a crime, nor is there a decision. There is also no notification regarding why or by which authority the access ban was issued.

    Moreover, there is such a judicial order that an access ban is imposed without first asking the addressee, and the penalty is executed without defense. Supposedly, the path to appeal is open afterward, but in practice, that path is also closed. T24 appealed on October 1 against the decision to block the entire site, citing 118 articles as justification. The application was discussed after being kept waiting for eight days. It was rejected with an extra-legal justification such as “there is no concrete evidence to change the decision.” The judge did not even take into account that the 118 articles cited as justification had been removed. T24 is still blocked.

   In addition to T24, last week, Bianet’s X account and the domain name of the Mezopotamya Agency (MA) were blocked. Access to the X accounts of many journalists was blocked once again. The number of bans in the first days of this month exceeded 200.  

   The strangest of the access bans was the one imposed on an account that shared a 23-year-old clipping of the news that 13-year-old Erdin Özel had infiltrated Esenboğa in 2004 to take a photo with the then-US President Bush.

Reader Opinions:

    Ergün Gökçek: False news is constantly being made in the newspapers I follow about retired bank promotions. The bank changes, but the expressions are always copies of each other. Moreover, there is no updated promotion either. 

    Emre Yörük: There is a habit in news sites in Turkey that has bothered me for years, and it is becoming more common as time passes. News that is deliberately incomplete or “click-bait” headlines. The clearest example is seen when the Central Bank announces an interest rate decision. The reader cannot get information about the announced decision from the headlines; one must click on the news to access the details on the page that opens. Don’t you think it is a problem to write headlines that empty the content of the news for a few clicks?

 In a single sentence:

• The newspaper Türkiye puts an “X” sign in some headlines even in the news on the front page instead of an apostrophe (‘); this technical glitch has not been fully resolved since August 13.

• Akşam, Aydınlık, Hürriyet, Milliyet, Posta, Sabah, Takvim, Türkiye, Türkgün, and Yeni Şafak deceived their readers by publishing the promotional text titled “Book fair opened its doors” by the AKP-run Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality as if it were news without adding an “advertisement” warning. 

• While stating that those who are not sports experts were talking about the Central Referee Committee operation on TV100, I had also counted Murat Ilıkan. Let me correct it; it said “Political scientist” on the screen, but Ilıkan is a member of the Gençlerbirliği board of directors and press spokesperson, and is continuing his postgraduate studies in Sports Education.

• In the news “Heavy blow to Trabzon economy,” where Yeni Şafak appears to be championing the problems of the sealed coal businesses, the information that the Trabzon Port is operated by Albayrak Holding, which also owns the newspaper, was not provided. 

• The media did not show interest in the death of 10 sailors on the Turkish-owned, Togo-flagged ship “Alfa Watan” that sank as a result of a UAV attack in the Black Sea, and glossed over the sinking of three ships in the Black Sea in the last week with small news items.

• Hasan Güraksu, the owner of the Gür Haber site in Burdur, was arrested on the grounds of “spreading misleading information to the public” with his news “Are spoiled meats being fed to patients at the state hospital?”

• Yeni Akit and Yeni Şafak held a summit on the economy on October 8; public institutions such as Halkbank, Vakıfbank, Ziraat Bankası, THY, and Türk Telekom sponsored both summits.

• The media did not show interest in the funeral ceremony in Büyükçekmece of Sudi Özkan, known as the “king of casinos”; only the Patronlar Dünyası site and the local Damga newspaper followed it. 

• Korkusuz, in its news “AKP members and fund holders have the right not to be stained, why doesn’t the opposition,” did the same thing it criticized by using the display photos in the municipal operations.

• In Hürriyet’s news “Ceasefire in Gaza remained on paper,” there was no information that Turkey was one of the countries that signed the “peace plan” which was stated not to have ended the humanitarian crisis. 

• Anadolu Ajansı, Aydınlık, Hürriyet, Gzt, Karar, NTV, Yeni Şafak sites, and TGRT Haber and Koza TV did not observe the “best interest of the child” by publishing the faces of two little girls openly in the news “They threw the money under the market door.”

• Yeni Akit used an image produced with artificial intelligence as if it were a real photograph in its news “Headscarf ban crisis in Azerbaijan is growing.”

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