A Turkish court ordered access blocked to 13 news reports concerning the property holdings of Justice Minister Akın Gürlek and parliamentary questions about an investment fund scandal, according to the review of a censorship report released Monday by a media freedom group.
The 13 articles included 10 concerning allegations about Gürlek’s assets and three covering questions directed at Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek about the investment fund crisis, according to the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA), a Turkish organization that monitors restrictions on press freedom and provides legal assistance to journalists.
A court in İstanbul’s Bakırköy district issued an order on October 10 blocking nine reports published by eight news outlets: 12punto, İlke TV, Medyascope, BirGün, Gazete Pencere, Bianet, Cumhuriyet and 10Haber. The decision became public on October 13.
The articles covered allegations raised by Özgür Özel, leader of the New Party, and Ahmet Şık, a lawmaker from the opposition Workers’ Party of Turkey (TİP), concerning Gürlek’s property holdings.
In March Özel alleged that properties Gürlek owned or had sold were worth a combined 452 million Turkish lira (about $10.2 million at the time), questioning how he could have accumulated such wealth during his career in the judiciary.
Gürlek denied the allegations, saying the documents presented by Özel were fabricated. He also said he would take legal action against the opposition leader.
The same İstanbul court separately ordered access blocked to a BirGün report on questions Şık submitted to Şimşek about the investment fund crisis, which erupted in September after some funds failed to meet investors’ withdrawal requests amid investigations into suspected market manipulation.
Three articles published by the Kısa Dalga news website were also targeted by blocking orders. One concerned Özel’s allegations about Gürlek, while the other two covered parliamentary questions submitted by Şık to Şimşek about the fund crisis. The two additional blocking decisions became public on October 12.
The nine-article order cited Article 8/A of Turkey’s Internet Law No. 5651, which allows authorities to restrict online content on grounds including national security and public order.
Turkish authorities have increasingly used Article 8/A to suppress critical reporting and block entire social media accounts, often citing unspecified national security or public order grounds without demonstrating a concrete threat, according to an October 12 joint statement by 21 human rights and media freedom organizations.
In a September 2023 ruling, Turkey’s Constitutional Court found that Article 8/A lacked sufficient safeguards against arbitrary restrictions by public authorities, ruling that its application in a case involving a blocked news report had violated freedom of expression and press freedom.
The restrictions were among several measures targeting independent media outlets, journalists and opposition politicians documented in MLSA’s bulletin covering October 12–18.
On October 14 authorities blocked the social media accounts of Halk TV, a leading pro-opposition broadcaster, across six platforms — YouTube, X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Telegram — hours after the state-run Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) was appointed as trustee to the station and its live broadcasts were halted.
The accounts had a combined following of more than 8.5 million, according to the MLSA. The blocking decisions also cited Article 8/A, although the authority responsible and the decision numbers were not disclosed.
Authorities also ordered access blocked to TİP’s official X account, which had approximately 582,000 followers, and its İstanbul provincial branch account. X had not yet implemented the order against the national account when it was announced.
The X account of the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya news agency was made unavailable to users in Turkey on October 14 following a notice from the country’s Cybersecurity Directorate. The Instagram account of the Kurdish-language newspaper Azadîya Welat was also blocked on October 17.
Journalist Bahadır Özgür, who worked for Halk TV, faced a blocking order for his X account on October 15, the same day he was detained on suspicion of violating the confidentiality of an investigation. He was released the following day under judicial supervision, including a travel ban and a requirement to report regularly to authorities. X had not yet implemented the blocking order when it was announced.
In a separate development the T24 independent news outlet filed an appeal with Turkey’s Constitutional Court on October 16 against a website-wide blocking order issued in late September.
T24 said the court had cited 118 disputed pieces of content but that the order prevented access to its entire website, containing more than 4 million items.
