If he hadn’t written it, we wouldn’t have known

If he hadn’t written it, we wouldn’t have known

İsmail Arı is an independent journalist who facilitates precisely this kind of circulation. And the night before last, he was arrested for practising journalism. I have read the report that led to his arrest many times. Each time, I realised once again just how valuable it is to make visible the capital relations behind urban crimes, which form a cornerstone of the work he has been doing for years.

Let us recall… It is 2022, at the park in Mehmet Akif Mahallesi, Çekmeköy. The AKP-led municipality wanted to build a 3,000-square-metre ‘Covered Market Area’ in the district’s second-largest park, which also serves as an earthquake assembly point. Behind this initiative lay a tender worth 31 million lira. Had İsmail Arı not written about who the contract went to, the fact that the project lacked planning permission, and how construction machinery was smuggled into the park at five in the morning to evade the public, this process would have been recorded as a public service. We witnessed the residents beaten behind the police barricades and the citizen screaming, “I’ll hang myself here,” through İsmail Arı’s eyes. Whilst exposing the network of profiteering, he was also bringing the people’s reality to the newspaper and the public. It was İsmail Arı who brought to the public’s attention the forced eviction of residents from their homes in Beykoz Tokatköy using pepper spray, and the voice of Tokatköy resident Gülümser Teyze, who cried out, “We do not deserve this oppression.” Had he not written about how the tender for the forcibly demolished homes in Tozkoparan was channelled to affiliated contractors, the capital transfer at the heart of urban regeneration would not have been so visible. It was also he who exposed the continuity of profiteering in Söğütlüçeşme by stating, “The project has changed, but the company hasn’t,” and documented the network of connections behind the development rising under the guise of a viaduct construction. We must not forget Haydarpaşa Station either. It was İsmail Arı who revealed to BirGün readers the heart-wrenching state of this unique part of Istanbul’s memory, hidden from public view behind the facade of restoration work since the 2010 fire. Each time he exposed the profit-making network, he also brought the voices of citizens into the public sphere.

These are just a few of İsmail Arı’s reports. The examples could be multiplied. I have focused specifically on the section concerning urban crimes. I did not choose this by chance. I drew inspiration from the report that led to his arrest. After all, the city is the everyday space where dominant and counter-public spheres take the most concrete form. The reporting of the backstory behind events such as changes to urban planning schemes, tender decisions, what goes on behind the hoardings of urban areas, or the seizure of a park from the public by heavy machinery in the early morning darkness forms the preconditions for democratic urban life. For citizens to be able to participate in public decisions and hold those decisions to account, they must first be informed of them. The compass of İsmail Arı’s reporting was oriented not towards capital or profit, but towards the common interest of the public. For this reason, his arrest is, in fact, a barricade intended to be drawn across the horizon of the public sphere. To defend his journalism is to defend the circulation of information; it is to defend the public sphere itself. İsmail Arı will be released and will continue to expand the horizon of the public sphere.

Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Yazmasa bilmeyecektik, published in BirGün newspaper on March 24, 2026.