Three YouTubers arrested in Turkey after posting interviews critical of country's financial crisis

Three YouTube content creators have been arrested in Turkey's Antalya province after asking citizens on the street about their economic concerns as the value of the country's currency continues to fall, deepening the country's financial crisis.

The YouTubers wrote on their social media that the purpose of conducting these interviews was to enhance their voices in the midst of the financial crisis. These interviews have been deemed by the government as promoting "inciting hatred and animosity against some groups and publicly denigrating the state and the government". These accusations have led to the three YouTubers being placed under house arrest, reports Turkey Purge, a media outlet that reports on human rights abuses in the country.

One of these personalities is Hasan Köksoy, who produces the YouTube channel Kendine Muhabir. The YouTuber has denounced his arrest on his social network Twitter where he said in a post that he was "dragged out of bed like a terrorist and arrested for handing a microphone to the public". Hasan Köksov has been recounting his arrest through tweets in which it can be read that he spent the night in custody because of an interview he was broadcasting live, also recounting that he appeared before a prosecutor and was sent to a duty court with a request for his arrest. The person he was interviewing, Hasan claimed in a tweet, was also under arrest.

Meanwhile, Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a recent speech, called social media one of the "main sources of threat to today's democracy" and said he would take energetic measures against internet media to "combat disinformation and propaganda".

These statements and the latest arrests have set off alarm bells for organisations promoting freedom of expression and human rights in the country. Reporters Without Borders and Freedom House have harshly criticised Erdogan's government and have described Turkey as "not free", pointing to the censorship or elimination of internet content that criticised the government. 

According to data provided on Turkey by the Stockholm Centre for Freedom, 174 journalists are already imprisoned in the country and 167 are being sought by the Turkish authorities.

All this comes in the wake of criticism of the financial crisis in Turkey, when the Turkish lira has fallen by 40% since September. The main reason for the fall in the Turkish currency lies in the executive's pressure on the central bank to lower interest rates in order to boost the economy, despite Turkey's high inflation.