A Turkish court placed veteran journalist and YouTube commentator Fatih Altaylı in pre-trial detention on 22 June after prosecutors said comments he made in a video amounted to a threat against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Altaylı, arrested at his Istanbul home the previous evening, had cited historical examples of Ottoman sultans who were assassinated or deposed while discussing a poll suggesting that roughly 70 percent of Turks oppose lifetime rule. He told the court the remarks were historical observations, not a threat. The crackdown broadened on 5 July when police detained BirGün columnist Timur Soykan over social-media posts that criticised police operations against opposition-run municipalities. Prosecutors allege Soykan’s messages "misled the public" and "incited crime"; they sent him to Istanbul’s 4th Criminal Court of Peace on 6 July seeking his arrest. Opposition lawmakers who tried to attend the hearing said they were blocked by courthouse security. Media-rights organisations including Reporters Without Borders and the Turkey Journalists’ Union condemned the proceedings, saying they underscore the government’s intolerance of critical speech. Turkey ranks 159th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2024 World Press Freedom Index.