Istanbul 9th Criminal Court of First Instance adjourned until 23 December 2026 the trial of 20 people, including journalist Fatoş Erdoğan, who reported on protests held after a trustee was appointed to the CHP Istanbul Provincial Organization, on a charge of “publicly inciting the commission of a crime.” At the hearing, Erdoğan and her lawyer Elif Ergin repeated their previous defenses and requested acquittal. It had emerged that sections of the first indictment had been copied from an indictment in another case concerning the YouTube program “Soğuk Savaş” and that the charges contained contradictions. The prosecutor corrected these errors with a supplementary indictment. Because of the supplementary indictment, the court began taking the defendants’ defenses again. As defendant Ebru Oruç, who conducted street interviews under the name “Sokak Kedisi,” did not attend the hearing, the additional defenses could not be completed and the case could not move to the stage of the prosecutor’s opinion on the merits. The court had previously lifted the judicial control measures imposed on the defendants.
21 October 2026
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