Turkish authorities on Thursday blocked access to the social media account of İstanbul’s jailed opposition mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who has nearly 10 million followers on X, Agence France-Presse reported.
İmamoğlu, who was detained on March 19 on corruption charges he strongly denies, is seen as the biggest rival to longtime leader President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The arrest could stop İmamoğlu taking part in presidential elections scheduled for 2028.
It was not possible to access to his X account on Thursday morning. A message read: “Account Withheld — @ekrem_İmamoğlu has been withheld in TR (Turkey) in response to a legal demand.”
A spokesperson for the İstanbul municipality confirmed access to the account was blocked, without giving further details.
Watchdog group EngelliWeb, which reports Internet censorship and blocked web sites in Turkey, said on X that access to İmamoğlu’s account had been blocked on national security grounds.
The account “has been blocked under Article 8/A of Law No. 5651, on the grounds of protecting national security and public order, and has been made invisible in Turkey by X”, it said.
Yaman Akdeniz, a law professor and head of Turkey’s Freedom of Expression Association (IFOD), said the details of the blocking order had not been revealed yet, but added: “Through our EngelliWeb project we detected the existence of an article 8/A order.”
“This means that the arbitrary order was issued to protect national security and public order. Unfortunately, I am not surprised as hundreds of accounts have been subject to such orders since İmamoğlu’s arrest,” he told Agence France-Presse.
“X has officially become the long arm of the Turkish law enforcement agencies,” he said.
Mass rally
Lawyer Gönenç Gürkaynak said he would object to the court order.
“Regarding the court decision imposing an access restriction on Mr Ekrem İmamoğlu’s account on X, upon X’s request and in my capacity as X’s independent attorney, I will be filing an objection application this morning at the relevant court, comprehensively presenting all legal grounds for our objections on this matter,” he said on his social media account.
In a show of solidarity with İmamoğlu, some X users replaced their profile pictures with the Istanbul mayor’s.
On his last message on X, İmamoğlu, who is jailed in Silivri prison on the outskirts of Istanbul, had urged his supporters to join a protest rally held Wednesday, which was called by his CHP party.
Tens of thousands of people took part in the Istanbul rally, one of the biggest in recent weeks.
In the days after İmamoğlu’s arrest, tens of thousands of people took part in near-daily protests. But numbers had dwindled in recent weeks.
Wednesday’s protest was held outside Istanbul University, which had stripped İmamoğlu of his degree the day before his arrest.
