President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hosted deputy prosecutors and judges at the Presidential Complex in the capital, Ankara, on Monday. He underlined Türkiye’s judiciary reform in the past two decades while calling for caution against lynch mobs on social media seeking to defame justice.
“Justice should not fall victim to ratings,” the president said, urging the media to adhere to their responsibilities while covering sensitive, sensational criminal cases.
The disappearance of an 8-year-old girl in a village in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır last month and the subsequent discovery of her lifeless body has sparked a debate in Türkiye over disinformation and misinformation. Narin Güran’s parents and relatives were taken into custody on charges of covering up her murder while an investigation is underway. Yet, social media was flooded with fake news on the murder, while several political figures were accused of politicizing the murder in the province with a prominent ethnic Kurdish population.
“We should not allow politically motivated campaigns against people’s faith, the institution of family over the bodies of innocent children,” Erdoğan said. The village and Güran’s family came under the spotlight for their political affiliation, with a journalist highlighting that the village overwhelmingly voted for Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and a smaller opposition party. A co-chair of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), a party affiliated with the PKK terrorist group, has blamed the state for covering up the cause of Güran’s death.
Slamming social media platforms where “no rules, values or moral boundaries exist,” Erdoğan said those websites were becoming tools for “operations.” “Fundamental principles of justice are falling victim to this new media order. Bullies on social media find someone to target every day,” Erdoğan lamented. The president said this new trend where people faced accusations without evidence harmed both justice and social peace institutions.
“It must be stopped. We respect the right to obtain information and freedom of expression on every public issue. But we must safeguard the integrity of ongoing investigations. This is a responsibility for all. I believe that all stakeholders in such issues, particularly the media, should be more careful,” Erdoğan said.
The president noted that his party viewed justice as directly connected with development while it adopted its name, and the judiciary should contribute to this. “Verdicts that do not address concerns in public conscience do not serve social peace. Unfortunately, we occasionally come across bad examples serving a sense of impunity. We are exerting efforts to minimize this,” he said.
The president did not give any example, but the recent release of a well-known influencer accused of money laundering and other crimes and faced up to 50 years in prison by an Istanbul court triggered a public outcry in the country. “Those committing crimes do not belong to streets; they belong to the prison,” Erdoğan said.
Also, speaking about the past and current state of the judiciary, Erdoğan said the judiciary was cleared of “leftovers of FETÖ (the Gülenist Terror Group) and past tutelage,” but they still needed to be cautious. FETÖ utilized its infiltrators in law enforcement and judiciary to overthrow Erdoğan’s government in 2013 under the guise of an anti-graft probe. The attempt was quashed, while judges and prosecutors linked to the terrorist group were expelled. The tutelage Erdoğan was referring to was active for a long time in the country where the judiciary often sided with putschists, from 1960 to 1980, when courts ordered the hangings of a prime minister and dozens of innocent people.
