Today marks the beginning of the 12th year. A full eleven years are now behind us. Hidayet Karaca—former CEO of the Samanyolu Broadcasting Group, our colleague, our elder—has entered his twelfth year in the dungeons of Silivri Prison, one of the darkest symbols of Turkey’s authoritarian justice system.
As of today:
132 months. 574 weeks. 4,018 days.
The poet Necip Fazıl wrote in “Letter from Prison to Mehmet”:
“In prison, a minute is no different from a month.”
I sat down and calculated it.
Hidayet Karaca has been deprived of his freedom for 96,432 hours, or 5,785,920 minutes.
In Necip Fazıl’s language, that amounts to 5,785,920 months.
Even saying it out loud is unbearable.
Karaca was taken into custody on December 14, 2014, on a fabricated charge, and has remained imprisoned in Turkey ever since.
What was the accusation?
A television series script.
Hidayet Karaca was neither the screenwriter nor the producer of that series. He was merely the executive of a media group with sixteen television channels. That alone was enough. The wiretaps used as evidence were illegal—but that no longer mattered. His fate had already been sealed.
Lawlessness Began on Day One
From the very first moment, the process was unlawful.
While held at the detention facility in Istanbul’s Çağlayan Courthouse, Karaca was subjected to inhumane treatment. Despite being ill, when he asked for water to take his medication, he was told, “Is this a cafeteria?”—and denied water.
He was kept awake for days.
He was not interrogated.
He was not fed properly.
Even after the legally mandated four-day detention period expired, he was not released.
Instead, prosecutors asked questions such as:
“Why did you broadcast content opposing the closure of prep schools?”
“Why did you criticize the government?”
Because this was never a legal case. It was political.
The order came from above.
Erdoğan Wanted It; the Prosecutor Was Rewarded
This case will one day be taught in Turkish law schools under the title: “How Law Is Executed.”
The prosecutor of the time, Hasan Yılmaz, carried out President Erdoğan’s will.
What happened next?
He was rewarded.
He became Deputy Minister of Justice of Turkey.
Other officials who signed off on this file were similarly promoted. İrfan Fidan is now a member of Turkey’s Constitutional Court.
In Erdoğan’s Turkey, lawlessness was crowned with promotion.
The Indictment Collapsed—The Punishment Continued
The indictments fell apart during trial.
There was:
no evidence,
no logic,
no law.
Karaca was convicted based on the testimony of a “secret witness,” Tamer Barış Terkeşli, a man later convicted by Turkey’s own courts for fraud—the infamous “Adanalı Parsadan.”
His lies were proven in court.
Later, Turkey’s Court of Cassation ruled clearly in the so-called “Tahşiye case”:
“Such an organization does not exist. There was no conspiracy.”
Yet no release came. No justice followed.
Instead, a new, absurd case—this time labeled “match-fixing”—was invented, and Karaca was handed a 1,500-year prison sentence under irrational reasoning.
For most of these eleven years, he has been held in solitary confinement, in a cell barely 10 square meters wide.
He was forgotten.
Deliberately erased.
Physical and Psychological Torture
During transfers to court hearings, Karaca was shackled with double handcuffs that were never removed. When a gendarmerie officer lost his balance and fell, Karaca fell as well. His wrists were cut open by the cuffs.
When his father died, even attending the funeral was turned into an act of cruelty.
Handcuffed.
Surrounded by armed guards.
Not even allowed to sit in the same hall as his family.
After years of being transported in coffin-like prison vehicles without his restraints removed, he now refuses hospital transfers—even when ill.
The entire case rests on lies told by a secret witness later convicted for fraud and for running a so-called “FETÖ-brokerage” scheme. Those lies were dismantled in open court.
The result did not change.
Life imprisonment.
Punishment Without End
Even that was not enough.
His retirement pension was seized, despite Turkish law explicitly stating that pensions cannot be garnished. He was subjected to “fugitive law”—despite having spent seven years in a solitary cell.
A 40 million lira tax penalty was imposed illegally.
His assets were frozen.
The persecution did not end.
It was designed not to end.
A Case That Will Define Turkey’s Regime Record
This case is symbolic.
From a television script to illegal wiretaps to eleven years of solitary confinement—this is a story of systemic persecution in Turkey.
The world does not remember such cases by court rulings.
It remembers them by regime records.
Dawit Isaak’s case is remembered not through Eritrean court files, but through Eritrea’s authoritarian legacy.
Raif Badawi’s case is not recalled through Saudi legal reasoning, but through lashes and silenced speech.
Over time, such cases detach from legal texts and enter the archives of human rights violations.
Today, the international community no longer reads these cases under “state security” or “counterterrorism.” They are classified as acts of political revenge, intimidation, and power display.
Memory Does Not Record Paragraphs—It Records Pain
Years from now, no one will remember the indictment number, the penal code article, or the judge’s reasoning.
They will remember this:
How many years in solitary confinement?
How many years alone?
How completely was he torn from his family?
Because memory records pain, not paragraphs.
And these cases are written not only onto the records of those in power—but also onto the consciences of those who remained silent.
Silence, over time, is no longer neutrality.
It is read as consent.
These cases have no winners.
Not the government.
Not the courts.
Not the prosecutors.
Only one thing prevails: memory.
This is no longer a court file.
It is a stain on Turkey’s regime record.
No propaganda can cleanse a system that produces eleven years of solitary confinement from a TV script.
History does not judge the journalists who were silenced.
It judges those who silenced them.
One day, when this file is finally closed, Hidayet Karaca’s name will stand beside freedom.
The name of this darkness will remain: shame.
So let me ask plainly:
What will it take for your conscience to move?
Must Hidayet Karaca die in a Turkish prison first?
