An investigation was launched against the executives of news portals such as Diken, T24 and Birgün in July 2019 on the grounds that they reported the posts published in 2014-2016 via the Twitter account with the named “fuatavni”. As a result of the investigation, a lawsuit was filed against the defendants on the charge of ” knowingly and willingly aiding an armed terrorist organization as a non-member”
According to the indictment prepared against the chairperson of the board of directors Harun Simavi, the editor-in-chief Erdal Güven and the former responsible editor Semin Sezerer of Diken news portal face up to 15 years of imprisonment.
In the hearing held on September 3 at the 22nd High Criminal Court of Istanbul, the prosecutor demanded the acquittal of all three defendants, as it was understood that there was no definite and convincing evidence that the defendants committed the alleged crime and that the action should be evaluated within the scope of journalism. Announcing its decision, the court decided to acquit the defendants since the act imposed was not defined as a crime in the law (3 September).