A court in Turkey has blocked access to the website of the Fırat News Agency (ANF) on the grounds of protecting national security and the public order, Turkish Minute reported.
An Ankara court ordered the restriction on September 19, covering the domain anf-news.com, İFÖD said.
Access to the site had been briefly restored earlier this month.
ANF, based in Brussels and publishing in Turkish, Kurdish and English, has faced recurring restrictions for more than a decade.
It has been associated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey designates as a terrorist organization but with which it has recently been conducting talks aimed at ending the decades-long conflict between the PKK and Turkey.
Turkish authorities blocked the outlet in 2011 along with 36 Kurdish-language sites, and courts issued further orders in the early 2010s. A 2014 ruling briefly restored access before another nationwide block on July 24, 2015.
Danny O’Brien of the Committee to Protect Journalists once described the constant blocking of the ANF website in Turkey a “cat-and-mouse” game.
Turkey has in recent years ramped up its control over digital platforms through a series of laws that expand state oversight of online content. Authorities routinely block access to websites, investigate social media posts and sanction platforms for non-compliance with government content removal orders.
The access bans are typically enforced through the Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) and the Penal Magistrates of Peace, which critics say act with little transparency or accountability.
Turkey was ranked the lowest-scoring country in Europe for online freedoms, according to a report from the Washington-based Freedom House last October. Turkey has a score of 31 in a 100-point index, with scores based on a scale of 0 (least free) to 100 (most free) and is listed as “not free.”
