House Arrest for Murat Ağırel and İsmail Saymaz
The Anatomy of a Lawlessness, and the Unknowns of the Electronic Shackle
A Shackle on the Question
Murat Ağırel and İsmail Saymaz's House Arrest, the Anatomy of a Lawlessness, and the Unknowns of the Electronic Shackle
Dear young comrades,
Last week an electronic shackle was fitted to the ankles of two journalists. Murat Ağırel and İsmail Saymaz cannot leave their homes. Mustafa Balcı and Şaban Sevinç are in Metris Prison. The "offence" the four of them share is to have asked, in the fund crisis that locked up the savings of more than half a million people in September, who won, and who got out in time.
This article tells two things. First the course of events, and why it is unlawful. Then how that shackle works as a piece of technology: what signal it sends, whose screen it lands on, and what counts as a breach. The second part is not a matter of curiosity. To know how the state imprisons a person in their own home is to know the material reality of surveillance.
Each section gives a short summary first, then the detail. Anyone in a hurry can read the summaries.
What happened, in brief
An investigation was opened against four journalists who reported allegations of political connections in the fund crisis, on a complaint by Trade Minister Ömer Bolat, under the charge of "publicly disseminating misleading information" (Turkish Penal Code 217/A). Balcı and Sevinç were detained. For Ağırel and Saymaz the prosecutor did not even seek detention; the judge imposed a ban on leaving the country and a signature obligation. The prosecution objected to that decision, and another criminal judgeship of peace ordered house arrest with an electronic shackle, the heaviest measure of judicial supervision. Between the first decision and the second, no new evidence and no new suspicion of flight appeared. The only thing that changed was the prosecution's stance.
Saymaz thus became the only journalist in Turkey to be placed under house arrest twice. The first time was in March 2025.
Background: a fund crisis, and a question that was not supposed to be asked
Let us recall. Between 12 and 17 September 2026 there was a collapse around the Pusula and Tera portfolio companies. The Capital Markets Board liquidated 130 funds of seven portfolio companies. Those funds were worth about 826 billion lira, and the number of investors was over 514,000. We took up the questions carried into Parliament in Who Got Out Before the Door Closed?, and the doors that were opened and then locked in Control for Capital, the Blast for Us.
As the crisis grew, a single question rose in public: Who pulled their money out before the fund collapsed? Was anyone connected to politics?
That question entered the parliamentary questions of opposition deputies, and it was debated on television. Journalists asked it too. The investigation was opened against the people who asked the question.
Chronology
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 22 August | AKP spokesperson Ömer Çelik is sitting one row in front of Osman Arıkan Nacar, who is named in the fund investigation, at a concert in Bodrum. The posts by Balcı and Sevinç rest on this photograph. |
| 12–17 September | The fund crisis breaks. The investigation begins, and 130 funds enter liquidation. |
| Early October | On Sözcü TV, Ağırel reports allegations about the fund network that had also been raised in Parliament, and he names the Trade Minister. |
| 7 October | Minister Bolat files a criminal complaint against Saymaz and Ağırel. The ground: that the posts damaged the reputation of the ministry and of the state. |
| 8 October | Bolat announces that his family's savings of 37.8 million lira have sat in a lease-certificate fund inside Hedef Portföy since 26 February 2024, and that he has not closed the account. |
| 9 October | The four journalists give statements. Balcı and Sevinç are detained and sent to Metris. For Ağırel and Saymaz, the 3rd Criminal Judgeship of Peace on duty imposes a ban on leaving the country and a signature obligation. |
| 9–10 October | The prosecution objects. The 4th Criminal Judgeship of Peace accepts the objection and places the two journalists under house arrest. Probation teams come to the homes and fit the shackle. |
| 12 October | Saymaz joins the programme on Sözcü TV from his home, with the shackle on his ankle. |
Note Minister Bolat's statement. The fact that a minister had an investment in a portfolio company was confirmed by the minister himself. The argument was about the part that asked "did he pull his money out, or not?" When the person addressed has himself confirmed part of the allegation the journalist reported, and is denying the rest, what is at stake is a correction and a right of reply. It is not a criminal investigation.
Ağırel said it himself: You can put a shackle on my ankle, but you cannot make these questions disappear. The title of Saymaz's piece on the house arrest is clear enough: My hands are free, for now.
Where is the lawlessness? Under five headings
Summary
The elements of the offence are being stretched. The measure is disproportionate. The appeal was used not to protect the suspect, but to make the measure heavier. House arrest is in effect a form of detention, but there is no ground for detention. And the real function of all of this is to show the limit to anyone who thinks of asking a question about the fund crisis.
One: the elements of the offence are being stretched
The public knows Turkish Penal Code 217/A as the "disinformation law". Let us look at the text. For the offence, the following must be present together:
- Information contrary to the truth, concerning the country's internal and external security, public order, or general health,
- The public dissemination of that information in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace,
- And the motive of creating worry, fear or panic among the public, and nothing else.
Now let us ask. Is a question about a minister's investments a matter of the country's internal and external security? Is asking about a political connection in a fund crisis that is already public done "for no reason but to create panic", or is it done in the public interest? Ağırel says he presented the allegations as allegations and not as established fact, that he looked into what had been raised in Parliament, and that he did not knowingly spread false information.
When this article was made law, bar associations, journalists' organisations and lawyers said exactly this: once the boundary of "contrary to the truth" is left unclear, the prosecution decides what is true, on a complaint from the executive. That is what has happened in this file. The complainant is the minister, the "truth" is the minister's statement, and the suspect is the journalist who asked the question.
Two: the measure is disproportionate
Judicial supervision is a measure applied in place of detention. Under Article 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, judicial supervision may be used only where the grounds for detention exist. There must be a strong suspicion of an offence, and alongside it a danger of flight or of tampering with evidence.
In this file:
- The prosecutor did not seek detention at the outset. His own request was a signature obligation and a ban on leaving the country.
- The risk of flight had already been met by the ban on leaving the country. Both journalists have worked for years at the same address, on the same channels, in public view.
- There is no danger of tampering with evidence, because the thing called "evidence" is publications and posts that are already public. There is nothing to tamper with.
Article 13 of the Constitution requires proportionality when fundamental rights are restricted: a measure must be suitable to its aim, necessary, and proportionate. If the same aim can be reached by a lighter measure, the heavier one may not be chosen. Here the aim, that the suspects be available to the investigation, had already been secured by the signature obligation and the ban on leaving the country. There is no legal ground for moving from the lightest measure to the heaviest.
Three: the closed circuit of the criminal judgeships of peace
An objection to a decision of one criminal judgeship of peace is examined by another criminal judgeship of peace in the same courthouse. This "horizontal appeal" has been criticised for years by the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's advisory body on constitutional law, and also by bar associations and lawyers. The reason is simple: there is no independent review above, judges of the same kind review one another's decisions, and the system closes in on itself.
In this file the mechanism went one step further. An appeal normally exists to protect the suspect: one goes to a higher authority against a heavy measure. Here the prosecution objected to a light measure, and another judgeship on the same level made the measure heavier. The path of appeal became the prosecution's instrument, not the defence's.
Four: house arrest is a deprivation of liberty
House arrest can be taken lightly by saying "at least they are not inside". The law does not see it that way.
In Buzadji v. Moldova (2016, Grand Chamber), the European Court of Human Rights counted house arrest as a deprivation of liberty within the meaning of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The consequence is clear: house arrest requires relevant and sufficient reasons to the same degree as detention. As time passes, those reasons have to be renewed.
Turkish law accepts this too. Every two days spent under house arrest with electronic monitoring are deducted as one day from the prison sentence to be imposed. The legislator counted house arrest as half a detention. Imposing it without grounds for detention, that is, in a file where even the prosecutor did not seek detention, is incompatible with the guarantee of personal liberty in Article 19 of the Constitution.
Five: the real aim is a chilling effect
Under the settled case law of the European Court of Human Rights, matters concerning public money and the conduct of politicians are the field in which press freedom is most strongly protected. A politician must tolerate more criticism than an ordinary citizen. That the complainant is a member of the executive does not loosen the standard. It tightens it.
For that reason the real function of the decision is less to punish two journalists than to show the limit to other journalists who would ask about the fund crisis. In legal language this is called a chilling effect. The most efficient form of censorship is not to ban, but to frighten. We saw this in the article we wrote on They Shut Down What They Cannot Buy: what they cannot buy, they shut down. What they cannot shut down, they frighten.
A table of inequality
To understand this file with its full weight, let us put the two sides side by side.
| Victims of the fund crisis, and those who asked | Winners of the fund crisis, and those addressed | |
|---|---|---|
| Who | More than 514,000 small savers; the journalists who asked the question | Those who set up the fund, those who sold the shares from the top, those who got out in time |
| Where their money is | Locked in funds under liquidation | For the most part long since out of the cycle |
| Access to information | They are waiting for the KAP announcement and the payment calendar | The chance to know in advance when the door would close |
| The state's stance | "Wait"; a shackle for the journalist who asks | "There is no structural risk"; swift action on the minister's complaint |
| Legal position | House arrest and detention for the journalist | The right to file a criminal complaint, for the minister |
There is no order built so that the right-hand column is not investigated and the left-hand column is questioned. But what operates in practice is exactly this: while the loss is socialised, information is privatised. Knowing who got out in time is the privilege of a handful of people. Everyone who asks is shown the door.
This is a class matter. The cheapest way to manage the political cost of a crisis inside capital is to silence the people who ask the question. The wish is that two journalists' ankles be talked about, rather than the savings of half a million households.
İsmail Saymaz: house arrest, twice
Saymaz's file should be mentioned separately. On 19 March 2025 he was taken into custody on the grounds of social-media posts about the Gezi protests of twelve years earlier, and on 21 March 2025 a criminal judgeship of peace placed him under house arrest. Nineteen months later he faces the same measure again.
That a journalist is shut into his home twice, in two separate files, on two separate grounds, is not a coincidence. It is a pattern. House arrest is becoming a way to pull the journalist off the field without paying the political cost of putting him in prison. The journalist can sit at home, write, and join a broadcast. But he cannot chase a story, meet a source face to face, wait in a courthouse corridor, or go out into the field. The shackle does not ban the journalist. It bans journalism.
On the broadcast in which he joined Sözcü TV from home, Saymaz said he had described the shackle to his three-and-a-half-year-old child as an "ankle watch". The child asked whether he would be able to wear one too when he grew up. That sentence shows whom the punishment finds: the shackle is fitted to one person's ankle, but the punishment falls on the whole household.
How does the electronic shackle work?
Let us now come to the second part of the article. The technology the state uses to imprison a person in their home.
Summary
The system has two parts. The shackle on the ankle broadcasts a short-range radio signal at short intervals. The base unit in the home listens for that signal and reports it to the Electronic Monitoring Centre in Ankara, over GSM or a landline. If the signal drops, the person is counted as having left the home. If the strap is cut, if the device leaves the skin, or if it is tampered with, a separate alarm is produced. The centre monitors seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. A breach is first put to the person by telephone, then reported to the judge. If it is repeated, detention can follow.
The centre: a wall of screens in Ankara
In Turkey, electronic monitoring runs through the probation service attached to the Ministry of Justice. The system began in 2012 as a pilot, with a few people, at the Electronic Monitoring Centre in Ankara. According to a report from that period on Memurlar.net, monitoring has been seven days a week and twenty-four hours a day from the start, and the location or status record of the person being followed is kept hour by hour, going back in time.
The figures given in Habertürk's visit to the centre show how the system grew: the centre had the capacity to monitor 3,000 people at once, and from 2013 until that day about 30,000 people had been monitored. A system that began with seven people in the pilot scheme has turned into a surveillance infrastructure measured in the thousands.
Four kinds of unit
The devices the centre uses come in four kinds:
| Unit | Components | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Home unit | An ankle shackle and a base receiver in the home | Checks whether the person is at home. It is the basic instrument of house arrest. |
| GPS unit | An ankle shackle and a receiver the person carries; in the newer generation, a single piece | Tracks location continuously. Forbidden and permitted zones are defined on a map. |
| Alcohol monitoring | A device installed in the home | The centre calls at random hours; the device takes a photograph of the face to confirm identity, then asks for a breath sample. |
| Victim protection | The perpetrator's shackle, the perpetrator's receiver, and a device the victim carries | If the perpetrator comes closer to the victim than a set distance, the victim receives an audible and vibrating warning. |
Look at the last row of this table. The same technology can protect a life in cases of violence against women. The technology itself is neither good nor bad. The question is against whom, and in whose hands, it is used. To see that women who have for years asked for a shackle in order to be protected from male violence have struggled to reach these devices, while they can be fitted to journalists at speed, is a question of priority, not of the tool.
How does the signal move in the home unit?
The classic arrangement used in house arrest works like this:
Transmitter: The shackle on the ankle broadcasts, at regular intervals, on the order of a second, a low-power radio-frequency (RF) signal, with an identity number of its own. This signal does not carry location. It only says "I am here".
Receiver: The base unit in the home listens for this signal. The listening range is set at installation, usually enough to cover the inside of the home and at most a balcony or a garden. When the person goes outside the area defined in the judge's decision, the base unit cannot receive the signal, and a record of "left home" is created. When they return, a record of "returned home" is entered. An entry-and-exit log is thus kept to the minute.
Transmission: The base unit sends these events to the centre over a GSM line or a landline. It has a backup battery against power cuts. Pulling the plug, cutting the line, and moving the device are each reported to the centre as a separate event.
Operator: The event lands on the operator's screen at the centre. The operator calls the person or sends a message. If necessary, the police are directed there. The situation goes into a report and is notified to the authority that gave the decision.
Why is the shackle "closed to interference"?
The shackle's most important function is not to send a signal, but not to be removable. For that, the device has several layers of protection:
- The strap circuit: A conductive or fibre-optic line runs through the strap. If the strap is cut, the circuit breaks and an alarm is produced.
- Contact with the skin: The device measures its contact with the skin. According to Memurlar.net, the shackle used in Turkey is sensitive to body heat; even if it slips off the ankle in sleep, it sends a breach signal.
- The body: Opening the casing is detected. The device is water-resistant, and it is not taken off in the shower either.
The person cannot remove the shackle themselves. Removal is done only by court order, by probation teams. Deliberately damaging the device can also be investigated as the offence of damaging public property.
The charging detail: is the home being watched, or the person?
There is a small but important detail here. The battery of a classic RF shackle usually lasts one or two years and does not need charging, because it sends only a short signal. GPS shackles, because they constantly calculate a satellite position and send data over the mobile network, have to be charged every day.
On the live broadcast Saymaz said that his device had two pink lights and that he charged it himself. This suggests that the device fitted may be a newer model that can also track location. There is no certain information. We note it as a possibility.
The consequence of the possibility matters. A classic home unit answers only the question "at home, or not?" A device with GPS also records where the person is: which hospital was visited on a permitted outing, which road was taken back, how long the wait was. For a journalist, this can mean that their sources, and the people they meet, also enter the state's ledger indirectly.
There is this as well: if the battery runs out, the signal drops, and if the signal drops, a breach record is created. The maintenance of the surveillance infrastructure is thus loaded onto the person under surveillance. By charging their own shackle every day, the person contributes to their own surveillance.
Is it possible to leave the home?
As a rule, no. There are exceptions: in compulsory situations such as a hospital, a funeral or a hearing, one may leave with permission obtained in advance from the court or the probation directorate. The regulation authorises the director to grant leave of up to five days where there is a justified excuse.
But there is no permission to go out for journalism, that is, for an interview, for following a story, or for going to the studio. That is why Saymaz and Ağırel can join broadcasts only from home. The effect of house arrest that is particular to the journalist is exactly here: everything in the profession that belongs to the field is suspended.
What happens if it is breached?
The breach report goes to the judicial authority. A single technical fault, or a short loss of signal, usually passes with a warning. Deliberate or repeated breaches can result in detention, under Article 112 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The shackle, then, is a detention that can turn into imprisonment at any moment. This creates an uninterrupted pressure on the person: every movement that could be misunderstood can open the prison door.
Objecting to house arrest, and crediting the time
House arrest can always be objected to, and the lifting of the measure can be requested. The objection is again examined by a criminal judgeship of peace. The closed circuit operates here too.
If a prison sentence is imposed at the end of the trial, every two days spent under house arrest with electronic monitoring are deducted as one day from the sentence. Six months of house arrest counts as a three-month sentence. The law itself thus accepts that house arrest is a punishment.
Questions often asked about the shackle
While preparing the article, these were the questions that came most often. A note: the brand and model of the device used in Turkey are not public. The figures below are taken from the manufacturer documents of house-arrest devices widely used in the world. The values of the device in Turkey may differ, but the logic of how it works is the same.
How do you shower with the shackle?
With the shackle on. The device is manufactured to be waterproof, and it is not taken off in the shower. Saymaz also said on the live broadcast that the device stayed on his ankle while he showered.
In practice, the things to watch are these:
- Do not cover it. Some people think of wrapping the shackle in a bag or in foil to protect it. This is not a good idea: metal foil cuts the signal, and the system can record that as "left home" or as "tampering".
- Dry under the strap. Water and soap left between the strap and the skin can cause irritation. Drying with a towel, or with a hairdryer on low heat, is what is recommended.
- Do not keep the foot under water for a long time. A shower is not a problem, but keeping the foot under water for a long time in a bath can weaken the signal.
Does it keep working if it goes into water?
The device does not break in water, but its signal does not pass through water well. These have to be separated:
- Waterproofing: An RF shackle model used in the United States, for example, is described as waterproof down to 10 metres. On some GPS models this figure is about 15 metres. The device goes on working in the shower, in the bath, and even while swimming.
- The signal: Radio waves weaken quickly in water. When the foot goes more than a few centimetres under water, the base unit may not be able to receive the signal. The system usually tolerates short interruptions. If the interruption goes on, it is recorded as "leaving home" or as tampering, and the centre calls.
- The sea and the pool: A person under house arrest cannot leave home anyway, so going into the sea is not in question. Some manufacturers openly forbid the use of a pool or a jacuzzi. What is allowed is decided by the officer who fitted the device.
How many metres from the home can one go?
The distance is not fixed. It is set at installation. In the user manual of a widely used base unit, for example, there are three steps:
| Step | Approximate range |
|---|---|
| Low | 15 metres |
| Medium | 30 metres |
| High | 46 metres |
These are values measured in the open. At home, walls, concrete, metal doors and objects such as a refrigerator shorten the range. During installation the officer walks around inside the home, sees where the signal drops, and sets the range according to the area in the judge's decision. If the decision names only the dwelling, the range is limited to the inside of the home; if the garden or the balcony is not stated expressly in the decision, even going there can create a breach record.
Another detail: this range is not "the area that is permitted". It is the area in which the device can hear the signal. When a person steps from the door of their flat onto the stairwell of the building, the signal may not drop. But that does not mean going there is allowed. Even if the system does not notice, the prohibition is legally the same.
What happens if the power or the internet is cut?
The base unit has a backup battery; in manufacturer documents this period is given as around 48 hours. Pulling the plug is reported to the centre as a separate event. If the mobile network drops, the device stores the events in its memory (about 30 days of records for one model) and sends them in a batch when the connection returns. A lost connection does not delete the record. It only delays it.
The place of the base unit is also fixed. If the device is moved and not put back in the same place within a few seconds, it produces an "unreliable location" warning. No one can widen the range by carrying the unit with them.
Can the shackle be cut?
Physically, yes. The strap is plastic and can be cut with a strong pair of scissors. But the system records the moment it is cut. The real question is whether cutting does any good. It does not.
Does covering it with metal cut the signal?
Yes, it does. A conductive material such as lead, aluminium foil or thick metal blocks radio waves. But this does not make the shackle "invisible". On the contrary, the system already records the loss of signal as an event. The moment the base unit cannot hear the shackle, it is assumed that the person has left home or that the device has been tampered with.
Covering the shackle with metal, then, is not hiding from the system's eye. It is having the system write "breach" in its ledger. Even if the person is sitting inside their home, the screen shows "not at home", and the centre calls. That is why even wrapping the shackle in foil in the shower is not recommended: a well-meant effort to protect it produces the same record as an ill-meant attempt to flee.
The logic of the system is plain here: the absence of a signal is itself a signal. Surveillance rests not only on seeing, but on counting the moment it cannot see as an offence.
Can it break if it is struck?
The devices are built solidly enough to withstand the knocks of ordinary life. Striking a door or a table leg, walking, going up and down stairs, kicking it in one's sleep: ordinary impacts of that kind do not damage the device.
A hard blow, though, can crack the casing or damage the strap. In that case the device produces a tampering alarm, because it cannot tell an accident from intent. If damage happens by accident, what is to be done is clear: call the probation directorate without delay and report it. A report made of one's own accord goes on the record. If there is no intent, the device is usually replaced. If no report is made and one waits for the alarm to come from the centre, the risk grows that the event will be read as an attempt to flee.
What happens if someone tries to remove it?
Every attempt to remove or tamper with the shackle is detected on more than one layer:
- There is light inside the strap. A fibre-optic cable runs through the strap, and infrared light is carried along it continuously. When the strap is cut or the lock is opened, the light is cut and the device immediately produces a "strap" alarm. Cutting the strap and joining the ends does no good either, because the moment of the interruption has already been recorded.
- The casing is protected. If the case is forced open, a "casing tamper" alarm is created.
- Contact with the skin is measured. The device in Turkey is stated to be sensitive to body heat. Sliding it off the ankle without removing it, or fastening it to something else, is also detected.
- The signal drops. Even if the shackle is removed and left at home, the strap alarm has already gone. If the shackle is destroyed, the base unit cannot receive its signal, and a "left home" record is created as well.
- It cannot be copied. Every shackle broadcasts with an identity number of its own. Imitating it with another transmitter is not possible in practice.
When the alarm reaches the centre, the process works like this: the operator calls the person; if there is no answer, or if the explanation is not satisfactory, the police are directed to the address, the event goes into a report, and it is notified to the judgeship that gave the decision. The consequences are heavy:
- Breaching a judicial-supervision obligation can be a ground for detention directly, under Article 112 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
- The device belongs to the public. Deliberately damaging it can also be the subject of an investigation for the offence of damaging public property.
- And if it is treated as an attempt to flee, it is used against the person in the main file as well.
In short, the shackle can be cut, but cutting it means not freedom but prison. The system's real power is here: the shackle does not hold the person physically. It holds them with the threat of detention. Fear takes the place of the wall.
Moving the prison into the home
Electronic monitoring is usually presented as a "humane alternative" to prison. A day in prison and a day at home are indeed not the same. To say this is not to take the shackle lightly. It is to describe the fact.
But experience around the world shows something else as well. Electronic monitoring often does not take the place of prison. It also draws into the net of supervision people who would never have entered prison. In criminology this is called net-widening. A person who would once have been released on a signature is now shut into their home with a shackle. This file is the textbook example: two people for whom the prosecutor did not even seek detention are today living, in effect, in a cell under surveillance.
The cost changes hands as well. In prison the state builds the wall, the state pays for the electricity, the state employs the guard. Under house arrest the wall is the person's own home, the electricity is their own bill, and part of the guard is their own family. The parent who has to explain the shackle to a child, the family that takes on the burden of a spouse who cannot leave the house: that is the unseen face of the punishment.
We have also spoken about the class logic of surveillance in KVKK's "80s Trend" Warning and Privacy in the Digital Age and, on surveillance at work, in Whose Eye Are the Glasses?. Every new surveillance technology is brought in first for "criminals", then spreads to those who dissent, then to everyone. The shackle is the ankle of a person standing at the end of the wall of screens in Ankara. Today two journalists, tomorrow a trade unionist, a student.
A likeness: a shackle for the comedian, a shackle for the journalist
A few weeks ago we wrote about the comedian Deniz Göktaş's case: The Deniz Göktaş Case and the Class of Humor. There we see laughter shackled, and here the question. The common ground is this: power wants to control the language in which it is spoken about. Humour becomes a target because it makes power look ridiculous; journalism becomes a target because it calls power to account.
What is to be done?
Anger on its own is not enough. Concrete steps:
- Follow the file, and have it followed. House arrest is not indefinite. It has to be reviewed at set intervals. Public attention to the objections, the decisions and the reasons makes the judgeships feel that they are being watched.
- Keep the question alive. The aim of the shackle is to make the question in the fund crisis be forgotten. The answer is to ask the question again: Who pulled their money out before the fund collapsed? Which shares were driven up by unusual trades? What did the supervisory institutions do for eleven months?
- Support the professional organisations. The statements and legal initiatives of journalists' organisations, bar associations and press bodies are the institutional form of solidarity. Join signature campaigns, and share the statements.
- Enlarge the demand that Turkish Penal Code 217/A be repealed. Being vindicated in files one by one is not enough. As long as an article stands that turns a complaint from the executive into a punishment, on an unclear measure of "being contrary to the truth", every question is a candidate to become a file.
- Demand that the criminal-judgeship-of-peace arrangement be changed. An objection to decisions of detention and of judicial supervision should be examined in an independent higher court. That is a guarantee for all of us.
- Open the surveillance technology to public debate. Who holds electronic-monitoring data, how long is it kept, who can reach it, and with which software and which company's infrastructure does it run? The answers to these questions should be public.
- Ask that the shackle be given priority in cases of violence against women. The same technology should be used much faster, and much more widely, to protect the victims of male violence. The resource should go not to the journalist, but to the person who needs protection.
Dear comrades,
Every few seconds, the device on Murat Ağırel's ankle tells Ankara "I am here". So does İsmail Saymaz's. What reports the place of Mustafa Balcı and Şaban Sevinç is not a signal, but a prison wall.
These four journalists asked a question: while the savings of half a million people were being locked, who won? The question is still unanswered. Instead of an answer, a shackle arrived.
Dear young comrades, if one thing is to remain from this article, let it be this:
A shackle is fitted to an ankle, but its target is a question. As long as the question keeps being asked, the shackle cannot reach its aim. For every journalist who has a transmitter fitted to their ankle, what is to be done is clear: ask their question more loudly, and from more mouths.
The savers waiting in front of the door, and the journalists sitting at home, want the same thing: that information should stop being the privilege of a handful of people. Information belongs to everyone. So does the question.
Sources
The course of events, and the decision
- Medyascope: The fund crisis, Şaban Sevinç and Mustafa Balcı detained, house arrest for Saymaz and Ağırel (9 October 2026)
- Hürriyet: A house-arrest decision concerning the journalists Murat Ağırel and İsmail Saymaz (10 October 2026)
- Yeni Birlik: House arrest for Murat Ağırel and İsmail Saymaz, a new act in the disinformation investigation
- Rudaw: A house-arrest decision concerning İsmail Saymaz and Murat Ağırel
- Dicle Fırat Journalists' Association: House arrest for the journalists İsmail Saymaz and Murat Ağırel
The journalists' own words
- soL: Murat Ağırel, "You can put a shackle on my ankle, but you cannot make these questions disappear"
- Akdeniz Gerçek: İsmail Saymaz's piece on house arrest, "I am the only journalist to be placed under house arrest twice"
- TR Haberleri: İsmail Saymaz joined Sözcü TV from home, with the electronic shackle (12 October 2026)
- Medyascope: İsmail Saymaz was placed under house arrest (21 March 2025)
The minister's statement
- CNBC-e: Minister Bolat's reply to the fund allegations (8 October 2026)
Electronic monitoring
- Habertürk: The Electronic Monitoring Centre opened its doors to Habertürk for the first time
- Memurlar.net: How does the Probation Electronic Monitoring Centre work?
- Milliyet: The electronic shackle is closed to interference
- Anadolu Agency: Life in 90 square metres with an electronic shackle
- Sentinel: RF Patrol device information (PDF)
- Attenti BU3000 home-unit user manual
- Mental Floss: Can people shower or swim with electronic house arrest ankle monitors?
- Hukukçular Evi: The electronic shackle, house arrest, breach, and crediting time against the sentence
Legal grounds
- Turkish Penal Code, Article 217/A (publicly disseminating misleading information)
- Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 109 (judicial supervision), 111 (lifting judicial supervision, and objection), 112 (failure to comply with judicial-supervision obligations)
- Constitution, Article 13 (restriction of fundamental rights), 19 (personal liberty and security), 26 (freedom of expression), 28 (freedom of the press)
- European Convention on Human Rights, Article 5 (right to liberty and security) and 10 (freedom of expression)
- European Court of Human Rights, Buzadji v. Moldova, Grand Chamber, 2016
Our related articles
The fund-crisis series
Press freedom and censorship
Surveillance
Knowledge Commons — Knowledge belongs to everyone. The investigation details in this article are at the stage of allegation; there is no final judgment, and the presumption of innocence applies to everyone. The article is not legal advice. The information is based on what had appeared in the press as of 13 October 2026.
