The X account of prominent Turkish human rights defender Hüseyin Küçükbalaban was blocked in Turkey after he shared a report about the detention of protesters opposing a NATO summit in Ankara, the Bianet news website reported.
Küçükbalaban, a longtime human rights advocate and former co-chair of the Human Rights Association (IHD), one of Turkey’s leading rights organizations, reposted a Bianet report on X about people detained while trying to protest on the NATO summit’s opening day.
“The right to democratic protest is an indispensable principle of democratic regimes. Those detained must be released immediately. #NATO is a war organization. No to war,” he wrote.
Neither X nor Turkish authorities had publicly explained the restriction.
The restriction came amid a broader crackdown before and during the July 7-8 summit, which brought leaders from NATO’s 32 member countries to the Turkish capital. Turkish authorities detained hundreds of people in pre-summit raids and at anti-NATO demonstrations, while courts and regulators restricted protests and online accounts.
The protest detentions followed security operations carried out in the weeks before the summit.
Authorities banned demonstrations in Ankara until July 10, closed roads and deployed about 40,000 security personnel for the summit. Turkish officials said the raids were counterterrorism operations unrelated to the meeting, while opposition parties and rights organizations said the measures were being used to suppress dissent.
Küçükbalaban was elected co-chair of the İHD in 2023 and held the leadership position until the group’s general assembly in November 2025. He remains active as a human rights defender and is a member of the Founders’ Council of the Turkish Human Rights Foundation (TİHV), which documents torture and ill-treatment and provides treatment and rehabilitation to survivors.
