Tolga Akış, the founder and manager of the group known to the public as Manifest, was detained as part of an investigation conducted by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office. His procedures at the police station have been completed.
After undergoing a medical examination, Akış was brought to the Istanbul Courthouse. After giving a statement to the prosecutor, he was referred to the criminal judgeship of peace with a request for his arrest on the charge of facilitating the publication of obscene material.
Arrest ordered
The criminal judgeship of peace ordered Akış’s arrest. The decision was based on the assessments in the prosecutor’s referral document.
The referral document described Akış as the founder and producer of Manifest and said he had organized numerous concerts at different times. It said the posts under investigation had been viewed by large audiences and should be assessed in terms of children’s psychological, moral and social development.
Legal assessment in the referral document
The document noted that obscenity cannot be assessed solely through nudity or the visibility of the body, and that the content must be evaluated as a whole, together with the way it is presented and the audience it reaches.
Referring to Article 226/2 of the Turkish Penal Code, the referral document stated that people who publish obscene images, writings or words through the press and broadcasting, or facilitate their publication, are subject to punishment. It said the provision covers not only the creation of such content but also its delivery to and dissemination among the public as part of criminal responsibility.
The referral document also included assessments that protecting children and young people from harmful content is among the state’s obligations, that children could access the content under investigation without any filtering mechanism, and that the activities of the group produced by Akış were presented to large audiences.
Other charges in the investigation
Tolga Akış is also being investigated for obscenity, using narcotics and laundering assets derived from crime. The request for his arrest stated that there were facts indicating strong suspicion of the alleged offenses and grounds for arrest, and that the nature of the offenses, the existing evidence and the upper limits of the anticipated sentences should be taken into consideration.
