{"id":21626,"date":"2026-02-05T11:19:36","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T11:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/?p=21626"},"modified":"2026-02-05T11:32:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T11:32:25","slug":"turkiye-release-furkan-karabay-from-house-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/2026\/02\/05\/turkiye-release-furkan-karabay-from-house-arrest.html","title":{"rendered":"T\u00fcrkiye: Release Furkan Karabay from house arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"

PEN Belarus joins the\u00a0statement<\/a> of PEN International about journalist and author Furkan Karabay.<\/p>\n

\u2018That Furkan Karabay finds himself under house arrest after spending over 200 days behind bars on spurious grounds shows that the authorities of T\u00fcrkiye will stop at nothing to muzzle his investigative reporting. We continue to stand with Karabay and fellow young writers who risk everything to speak truth to power\u2019. <\/em>Burhan Sonmez, President of PEN International<\/strong><\/p>\n

03 February 2026 \u2013 The authorities of T\u00fcrkiye should immediately release journalist and author Furkan Karabay from house arrest and end their relentless judicial harassment, PEN International said today. The organisation further urges the authorities to uphold the rights to freedom of expression and information, and to stop weaponizing the justice system to silence independent voices.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On 23 January 2026, police detained<\/a> Furkan Karabay and placed him under house arrest on suspicion<\/a> of \u2018publicly spreading misleading information\u2019 and \u2018making targets of those who were tasked to combat terrorism\u2019. The allegations against Karabay stem from his reporting<\/a> on the case targeting the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (\u0130BB), which notoriously led to the arrest of Istanbul\u2019s mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu in March 2025, setting off massive protests<\/a> across T\u00fcrkiye. The investigation against Karabay is ongoing at the time of writing.<\/p>\n

Furkan Karabay has been repeatedly targeted by the authorities of T\u00fcrkiye in recent years on account of his critical reporting. Already 2 December 2025, the Istanbul 25th High Criminal Court found Karabay guilty<\/a> of \u2018insulting the president\u2019, \u2018insulting a public official\u2019 and \u2018making targets of those who were tasked to combat terrorism\u2019 on account of his journalistic work and handed him a combined prison sentence of four years and three months. Karabay \u2013 who spent 201 days in pre-trial detention \u2013 was freed due to time served. PEN International, its newly established Young Writers Committee<\/a>, and PEN Centres across the world actively campaigned for his release, notably translating<\/a> and publishing<\/a> some of his short stories. PEN International calls for Karabay\u2019s baseless conviction to be overturned on appeal.<\/p>\n

Once again, PEN International urges the authorities of T\u00fcrkiye to end the arbitrary arrest and detention of writers and journalists simply on the basis of the content of their writing, and to safeguard the crucial role of journalism in fostering dialogue and debate on matters of public interest.<\/p>\n

Additional information<\/strong><\/p>\n

Furkan Karabay, born 15 May 1996, has worked with several media outlets in T\u00fcrkiye, including Medyascope<\/em>, Cumhuriyet<\/em>, 10Haber<\/em>, Oda TV<\/em>, and Ger\u00e7ek G\u00fcndem<\/em>. He notably specialises in judicial developments. In 2024, Karabay published Gurban<\/em>, a book detailing his investigation into businessman Mubariz Mansimov\u2019s activities with the government in T\u00fcrkiye as well as his rise and fall.<\/p>\n

Karabay responded to his house arrest with a new short story, translated into English by Ege D\u00fcndar, writer, Board member of PEN International and Vice-Chair of PEN International\u2019s Young Writers Committee. Reflections From Detention: \u2018I Don’t Know Why They’re Putting You Through This\u2019<\/em> is available on Tomorrow Club here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Note to editors:<\/strong><\/p>\n

For further details contact Aur\u00e9lia Dondo,<\/strong> Head of Europe and Central Asia Region at PEN International<\/p>\n

For media queries, please contact\u202fSabrina Tucci<\/strong>, Head of Communications and Campaigns at PEN International<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PEN Belarus joins the\u00a0statement of PEN International about journalist and author Furkan Karabay. \u2018That Furkan Karabay finds himself under house arrest after spending over 200 days behind bars on spurious grounds shows that the authorities of T\u00fcrkiye will stop at nothing to muzzle his investigative reporting. We continue to stand with Karabay and fellow young<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":21627,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solidarity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21626"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21630,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21626\/revisions\/21630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}