A Turkish court on Wednesday released Deutsche Welle Turkish service reporter Alican Uludağ under judicial supervision after he spent approximately 25 hours in police custody over a social media post criticizing the country’s judicial system, DW Turkish reported.
An Ankara criminal judge of peace imposed an international travel ban and ordered Uludağ to report to a police station four days a week.
Uludağ was detained at his home in Ankara around noon on Tuesday and spent the night at the Ankara Police Department. After questioning by police, he was taken Wednesday to the press crimes investigation bureau of the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which requested his release under judicial supervision.
The investigation concerns a July 21 post on X in which Uludağ criticized the conduct of criminal investigations and said suspects were being publicly portrayed as guilty before appearing in court.
“A new judicial order has now been established in Turkey,” Uludağ wrote, alleging that information prepared against suspects and police footage of their detention were routinely provided to pro-government journalists while they were still on their way to the police station.
He said such practices disregarded the presumption of innocence and the right not to be publicly stigmatized, adding that suspects were effectively convicted in the eyes of the public through media campaigns.
“While detention is the exception under normal law, detention has now become the rule and release the exception,” he said. “No one has any legal security left.”
Uludağ cited the recent arrest of YouTube personality Oğuzhan Uğur in an investigation into alleged financial misconduct at the AHBAP charity as an example.
Türkiye'de artık yeni bir yargı düzeni oluşturuldu. Sabah kişilere yeni operasyon yapıldığında, o kişi daha emniyet yolundayken aleyhinde hazırlanan bilgi notları aynı merkez tarafından yandaş gazetecilere servis ediliyor. Yetmiyor, polis kamerasıyla çekilen gözaltı anları…
— Alican Uludağ (@alicanuludag) July 21, 2026
The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation into posts by Uludağ and “some users” on suspicion of publicly disseminating misleading information under Article 217/A of the Turkish Penal Code and inciting hatred and hostility or publicly denigrating a segment of society under Article 216.
Press organizations gathered outside the Ankara Courthouse before Uludağ was questioned, calling for his immediate release and chanting, “Journalism is not a crime.”
The Contemporary Journalists Association (ÇGD), the Journalists’ Union of Turkey (TGS), the Journalists Association and the Communication Workers Solidarity Network participated in the demonstration.
ÇGD President Kıvanç El criticized the use of house raids and detentions in investigations of journalists, particularly when detentions take place in front of their children.
“The criminalization of journalism and the portrayal of journalists’ comments and social media posts as criminal evidence are unacceptable,” El said. “Alican Uludağ is a journalist, and he is a good journalist. He must be released immediately and return to his work.”
TGS Ankara branch chair Sinan Tartanoğlu said journalists wanted to report the news, post on social media and express criticism freely.
“We say every time, ‘Journalism is not a crime,’” he said. “Yet each time, we face people who tell us, ‘You can’t do this.’”
Uludağ’s latest detention came two months after he was released following 90 days in pretrial detention in a separate case concerning earlier social media posts.
Police detained him at his Ankara home on February 19, after which a court jailed him pending trial on charges including publicly insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, publicly disseminating misleading information and publicly denigrating the Turkish government and the judiciary.
The court adjourned his trial until September 18.
Uludağ denied the charges at the hearing and said he was being prosecuted for his journalism.
Uludağ, an award-winning journalist who has worked as a judicial reporter for 18 years, is known for covering corruption investigations, politically sensitive trials and human rights violations.
His earlier imprisonment sparked criticism from press freedom groups and the German government, which described the allegations against him as “baseless.”
Journalists in Turkey frequently face detention and prosecution under broadly worded laws criminalizing insults against public officials, the dissemination of allegedly misleading information and the denigration of state institutions.
According to Expression Interrupted, a press freedom monitoring group, 26 journalists are currently behind bars in Turkey.
Turkey was ranked 163rd among 180 countries in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders, down from 159th last year.