Turkish police seize Halk TV, detain 11 in Istanbul raid

Turkish police raided the Istanbul headquarters of the pro-opposition broadcaster Halk TV on Oct. 14, 2026, halting its live broadcasts and detaining 11 people as a court-appointed trustee took over companies linked to its owner.

Prosecutors issued detention orders for 17 people in a bribery, bid-rigging and money-laundering investigation into Halk TV chairman Cafer Mahiroglu, according to Euronews. Press freedom groups say no journalists or editorial staff were among those detained, and note that another broadcaster, TELE1, was placed under a state trustee in October 2025.

Officers from the Financial Crimes Investigation Department searched the building in Istanbul’s Zeytinburnu district while riot police secured the area, Turkiye Today reported. Halk TV said on X that police had raided its headquarters, a trustee had been appointed and broadcasts had been stopped.

Journalists said they were locked out as dawn broke. “The police have sealed off the entrance to our building,” Halk TV journalist Onur Dalar wrote on X, as quoted by Euronews. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that, by the time of its report, staff were running the channel’s website and social accounts, while the television feed carried music and documentaries. It said local media reported a court had ordered the channel’s social media accounts blocked inside Turkey.

The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said a court ordered the seizure of companies linked to Mahiroglu and named the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF), a state agency, as trustee, according to a joint statement by the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) consortium published Oct. 15. Mahiroglu lives abroad and was not detained. He has rejected the accusations as false.

“Control of Halk TV must immediately be returned to its staff,” said Ozgur Ogret, CPJ’s Turkey representative, in a CPJ statement. CPJ said it emailed the prosecutor’s office for comment and had received no reply when it published.

The MFRR statement, signed by 13 organizations including the International Press Institute, ARTICLE 19 Europe and CPJ, said: “A criminal investigation into the channel’s owner cannot justify seizing control of a newsroom and silencing its coverage.” It called for the trustee appointment to be revoked and for broadcasting to be restored.

Opposition leader Ozgur Ozel called the raid “weak and cowardly” and wrote that “storming a TV channel with a police raid at dawn and appointing a trustee is something only dictators do,” Euronews reported. The Turkish Journalists’ Union said the raid showed “the lawlessness used by the political authorities to overcome every problem.” Euronews said it found no government response and no comment from Halk TV management beyond its X post.

Turkiye Today reported that Mahiroglu blamed Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who returned to the leadership of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in May 2026, writing on X: “The CHP leader Kilicdaroglu and his team can be happy. Police on Halk TV.” The outlet said the two men have been in a dispute over the channel’s coverage. Kilicdaroglu’s side had not been quoted in the reports we read.

The raid came hours before the defence phase was due to begin in the corruption trial of jailed Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and about 400 other defendants, Euronews said. Two weeks earlier, it reported, authorities shut down the website and social accounts of the news site T24. In October 2025, TELE1 was placed under a TMSF trustee after its editor-in-chief, Merdan Yanardag, was arrested in an espionage investigation, according to CPJ and the MFRR. The MFRR said he remains in prison.

The case follows other recent political turbulence in Turkey, including the defection of Izmir’s mayor to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party, which we reported on Oct. 10.

For Canadians, the Government of Canada’s travel advice for Turkiye tells travellers to exercise a high degree of caution and warns of the possibility of large-scale demonstrations, which can turn violent. It says taking part in or being near a demonstration can lead to questioning or detention. We did not find a statement from Global Affairs Canada on the Halk TV raid.

What happens next is unclear. Prosecutors have not said when the 11 detainees will appear before a judge, and the press groups’ demands to revoke the trustee order have not been answered. This is a developing story and the facts above may change.

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Via Euronews, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Media Freedom Rapid Response consortium and Turkiye Today. Updated Oct. 15, 2026.