An Istanbul court on 15 December sentenced each of the six members of the Turkish girl group Manifest to three months and 22 days in prison on charges of ‘obscene acts’ and ‘public indecency’ following a concert held in the Beşiktaş district last September. However, the formal reading of the verdict was postponed, so the sentence will not be carried out unless the members of the famous music group repeat the offence.
The ‘exhibitionism’ investigation was opened in the wake of the controversial concert in September, when the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation into the group’s provocative costumes and suggestive choreography. The artists had pointed out in their defence that the event, for which the 12,000 tickets were sold out, was restricted to over-18s, but images of the concert provoked a wave of reactions on social media.
According to Turkish daily Hürriyet, the Istanbul prosecutor’s office argued in the indictment that the dances exhibited by the band members violated society’s common sense of decency, violated the feelings of modesty, chastity and modesty that constitute an important part of social culture, and could have a negative impact on children and young people.
The statement added that the acts performed during the concert were of a sexual nature, damaged shared privacy and did not take place in a private sphere, as the videos were widely disseminated on social platforms, reaching an indeterminate audience, including minors. For all these reasons, the prosecutor asked for each singer to be sentenced to between 6 months and one year in prison for “committing indecent acts in public”.
The singers will not have to go to prison for the time being
With the court decision announced on 15 December, the six members of Manifest will not have to go to prison for the time being due to the low amount of the sentence; however, the Turkish courts could order the sentence to be served if they are convicted again for the same offence. In its ruling, the court also lifted the travel ban imposed as a precautionary measure against the members of the group at the beginning of the case.
The controversial concert in Istanbul held in September divided Turkish public opinion from the outset between those who defended artistic freedom and those who considered the attire and dances to be excessively provocative and inappropriate for Turkish social and cultural standards.
Manifest, an ensemble that emerged in 2025 after an online talent hunt competition called ‘Big 5 Türkiye’, which has since its inception experienced a meteoric rise to success and has 4.2 million monthly listeners on platforms such as Spotify, was forced after accusations of ‘obscenity’ to cancel several concerts due to the withdrawal of support from sponsors, promoters and local authorities.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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