Police raided Halk TV’s Istanbul offices before dawn on Wednesday, 14 October, interrupting its live broadcast at about 6:30 a.m. The channel switched to prerecorded programmes. Cumhuriyet reported that staff were blocked from entering. A government-appointed administrator took charge as jailed Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu began presenting his defence in a major corruption trial.
Halk TV is one of Turkey’s most-watched broadcasters and a prominent government critic. The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said Halk TV and companies linked to its owner, Cafer Mahiroglu, had been placed under the management of the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund, or TMSF.
The broadcaster’s editor, Suat Toktas, refused to cooperate with the appointee, Halk TV reported on its website. He later asked to keep live programmes on air, but Turkish Minute reported that the request was rejected. The channel was showing reruns of a cooking and nature programme.
The takeover came on the day Imamoglu began presenting his defence. The jailed Istanbul mayor is the basic opposition’s presidential candidate. Opposition leader Özgür Özel tied the intervention at Halk TV to the start of the hearings.
That timing is central to the opposition’s criticism. Özel says the cases against Imamoglu and other mayors, as well as investigations targeting the opposition, are politically driven efforts to keep his party from power. He also says they are intended to stop Imamoglu from challenging President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the ballot box. Those are the opposition’s claims, not an established finding in the case against the broadcaster’s owner.
The Istanbul prosecutor’s office cited alleged bribery and tender-rigging tied to municipal tenders in Izmir, along with money-laundering allegations. The allegations concern another company owned by Cafer Mahiroglu, Halk TV’s owner and board chairman. Prosecutors allege that an unregistered payment of 14.46 million Turkish lira was linked to Izmir Municipality tenders and companies owned or managed by Mahiroglu.
The investigation also concerns BUSTECH Vehicle Maintenance and Repair Services Inc. Prosecutors allege Mahiroglu used connections at the municipality to help establish the company and secure an improper benefit through tenders. The prosecutor’s office ordered the detention of 17 people. Eleven had been detained, information from its statement cited by Cumhuriyet. The statement did not identify them. Mahiroglu was outside Turkey and had not been detained.
Imamoglu has been in prison since his detention on 19 March 2025. He is one of 436 defendants in the case, 53 of whom are in pre-trial detention. Prosecutors accuse him of creating and leading a criminal organisation, among other offences, and are seeking a sentence of up to 2,352 years. His defence is scheduled to last four days. Prosecutors and lawyers may question him afterwards.
Imamoglu and the opposition had asked for the hearings to be broadcast live. The request was rejected. The trial’s scale and the refusal to televise it have become part of the opposition’s dispute with the government. The case concerning Mahiroglu’s other company remains the stated basis for the intervention at Halk TV. The allegations against Mahiroglu have not been established by a final court judgment.
Founded in 2005, Halk TV has links to Turkey’s social-democratic opposition. It has faced administrative fines and temporary suspensions of interview programmes over comments authorities deemed disrespectful. Yeni Parti called the latest intervention an act characteristic of dictatorships. Özel condemned the pre-dawn raid on social media.
