Turkish authorities should immediately release journalist Farih Altaylı pending his appeal, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.

An Istanbul court on November 26 found prominent commentator Altaylı, who was arrested pending trial in late June, guilty of the charge of threatening Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and sentenced him to four years and two months in prison.

“Finding Fatih Altaylı guilty of threatening the president is not only a misguided verdict but an open call for self-censorship by the country’s entire news media,” said Özgür Öğret, CPJ’s Turkey representative. “Turkish authorities should immediately release Altaylı pending appeal and stop choking the flow of reporting and commentary in Turkey.”

On June 20, Altaylı — who regularly shares content to his 1.6 million YouTube subscribers and 2.7 million X followers — commented on a public poll in which 70 percent of Turkish voters indicated that they preferred to vote for another leader after Erdoğan, who won’t be eligible to run in the country’s 2028 elections because of term limitations, despite talk of changing the constitutionally imposed two-term limit. In his commentary, Altaylı said the Turkish people “love the ballot box” and wouldn’t want to abandon the right to determine their own future. He added: “This nation is a nation that strangled their sultan when they didn’t like things; didn’t want him. A nation that booed their sultan.”

Altaylı once again pleaded innocent at the November 26 hearing and asked: “Why would the president be afraid of me? I’m not a [terrorist] organization member or anything. I never resorted to violence.”