Court releases Manifest founder Tolga Akış at the first hearing of his obscenity trial

The hearing

Tolga Akış, the founder and manager of the pop group Manifest, was released on Thursday at the first hearing of his trial. He appeared before the Istanbul 43rd Criminal Court of First Instance with his lawyer, and several people from the music world came to the courthouse, Cumhuriyet reported.

According to NTV, the hearing prosecutor asked for his release after Akış gave his defence. The court agreed and adjourned the trial until 18 March. Euronews Türkçe reported that the release comes with a ban on leaving the country.

Akış was detained on 28 August as part of an investigation by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, and the indictment was prepared in October. He is charged with helping to publish obscene material, for which prosecutors ask for six months to three years in prison.

His defence

“I have been in prison for 77 days for a crime that, in my view, I did not commit.”

Tolga Akış, Cumhuriyet(translated)

Akış told the court he found the indictment unclear about which act the obscenity charge rests on. Speaking about the group’s concert at Küçükçiftlik Park, he said producers know the general flow of a show but cannot plan or know every moment in advance.

He said nobody under 18 was in the audience, and that the concert was announced as adults-only because the venue has an age limit, not because of its theme. He added that the group’s official accounts shared nothing from the concert and that they had filed a complaint against people who spread footage of it. He denied the charge and asked to be acquitted.

The case behind it

The indictment alleges that Akış caused Manifest’s “obscene images and performances” to be created and helped to publish them. BBC Türkçe reported that the investigation into him was also run on suspicion of drug use and of laundering the proceeds of crime.

Manifest was formed from the winners of the talent show Big5 Türkiye and released its first song in early 2025. An investigation was opened after the group’s concert at Küçükçiftlik Park in Istanbul on 6 September 2025, over the members’ clothes and dancing. Many municipalities then cancelled the group’s concerts, and the group called off its Turkey tour.

In that case the members were each sentenced to three months and 22 days in prison, and the court placed the six members under supervision for five years. According to NTV, the singer Ayça Dalaklı, who was on stage with them that night, received the same measure.