Journalist Yelis Ayaz arrested in Turkey for ‘spreading disinformation’

Istanbul, May 20, 2026—Turkish authorities must release journalist Yelis Ayaz without delay and stop punishing journalists for doing their jobs, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.

Ayaz, publisher and editor-in-chief for the local newspaper Aydınpost in the western province of Aydın, was arrested pending trial by a court on May 15 on suspicion of “publicly spreading disinformation” regarding reports on a politician’s son who was allegedly bringing weapons to school. A trial date will be set after the journalist is indicted.

“Yelis Ayaz’s arrest was the latest unfortunate link in the lengthy chain of journalists imprisoned under the pretext of spreading disinformation in Turkey,” said Özgür Öğret, CPJ’s Turkey representative. “Authorities must immediately release Ayaz, who was simply doing her job and didn’t cause any panic among the population by her reporting, as the law dictates is required to prosecute.”

Ayaz wrote a column on April 20 regarding the allegations, without mentioning whose son the student in question was. She was briefly detained afterwards but released after being questioned by a prosecutor, her lawyer said.

Aydınpost published a story on May 14 reporting that the underage son of Seda Sarıbaş, a parliamentary deputy of Aydın for the leading Justice and Development Party (AKP), was bringing a knife and a gun to school. In another column by Ayaz, published after her arrest, she stood by her story and said that multiple parents from the school had filed complaints about the student.

Sarıbaş said in a post on X on May 15 that she was targeted for “character assassination” by fake news, without mentioning Ayaz.

Introduced in late 2022, the disinformation law dictates that anyone found guilty of publicly spreading false information in order to cause concern, fear, or panic will face a sentence of one to three years in prison. While supporters of the legislation at the time offered reassurances that the law would not be used against journalists, it has since become one of the most frequently used laws against the media.

The Aydın chief public prosecutor’s office released a written statement on the day of Ayaz’s arrest arguing that the journalist’s reporting was untrue and that the complaints were about a toy gun brought to the school.