Sedef Kabaş
Sedef Kabaş (born 8 December 1968 in London) is a Turkish journalist and TV presenter who has worked on Turkish news programs since the 1990s. She studied international relations at Boğaziçi University, earned a master’s in television journalism from Boston University, and completed a PhD at Marmara University in 2007, focusing on how interviews shape public opinion.
Her career includes Power FM (1992), CNN International in Atlanta (1995–1997) as the first Turkish journalist there, and later work for NTV, ATV, TV8 and Sky Turk. She hosted the Portreler interviews and won the 1999 Diyalog Award for Best Presenter. She has taught journalism at several Turkish universities (2001–2011) and published seven books since 2005. She has also hosted programs like Sesli Düşünenler, Haber Ötesi, and Halk İçin Halk Adına.
Kabaş faced legal trouble before: in 2015 she was charged over tweets about the 2013 corruption scandal but was acquitted. In 2019 she was charged with insulting the Turkish president after a TV appearance and received a suspended 11‑month sentence.
In January 2022, during a Tele1 program, she quoted proverbs that were interpreted as targeting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. She was arrested on 22 January and held in Istanbul’s Bakırköy Women’s Prison. Tele1 faced fines and a short broadcasting ban.
On 11 March 2022, she was acquitted of insulting a public official, given a suspended sentence for insulting the president, and released. The case drew international attention and calls for press freedom.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 07:44 (CET).