Journalist with Germany’s Deutsche Welle arrested in Turkey

By Reuters 20 February 2026, 5:10 pm

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Turkish authorities have formally arrested a correspondent with German state-backed international broadcaster Deutsche Welle in Ankara, charging him with insulting the president through a series of social media posts.

A Turkish court ruling says Alican Uludag was arrested for posts on X, which had undermined President Tayyip Erdogan’s “honour, dignity and respectability.”

Late on Thursday, Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement that it had detained Uludag and launched a criminal investigation into some of his social media posts.

In court documents, Uludag was quoted as saying in his defence that he had done nothing wrong and that any criticism of the president or the state’s judiciary was within his journalistic rights.