Journalist İnan Ketenciler took a video of a neighborhood guard’s maltreatment of a citizen and posted it on Twitter on June 23, 2019. The neighborhood guards seen in the video filed a criminal complaint against journalist İnan Ketenciler, who captured the moment of detention in his video and shared it on his social media account. Upon the guards’ complaint, the Cyber Crimes Investigation Bureau of the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation against Ketenciler.

As part of this investigation, Ketenciler was standing trial for “acquiring personal data through illegal means or publishing them” at the İstanbul 55th Criminal Court of First Instance. At the first hearing on September 24, the prosecutor alleged that the charge brought against Ketenciler might be changed. The prosecutor claimed that Ketenciler might be charged with not “acquiring personal data through illegal means or publishing them”, but with “unauthorized recording or transferring of sound and video during investigation and prosecution proceedings.”

At the final hearing held on October 8, 2020, Ketenciler was sentenced to 25 days in prison on charge of “recording sound and video” as per the Article 286/1 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). The court has converted the prison sentence into a judicial fine of 500 TRY and deferred the pronouncement of the judgement (October 8).