Turkish authorities ordered access blocked to at least 88 X accounts in the early morning hours of October 5, including the official X account of the Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD), days after authorities targeted the account of the group’s project that monitors online censorship in Turkey, the Bianet news website reported.
İFÖD said its @ifadeorgtr account was blocked on grounds of protecting “national security and public order” and subsequently withheld by X in Turkey. The association said many of the other accounts covered by the latest blocking orders had also been made unavailable by the platform to users in Turkey.
An access-blocking order does not automatically make an account unavailable on X because the platform must separately implement the restriction in Turkey.
The October 5 orders also targeted journalists, a former judge, a political party and people working in technology, psychology and the arts. Among them was Ömer Faruk Eminağaoğlu, a retired judge and former head of the Union of Judges and Prosecutors (YARSAV). The account of the Women’s Party, a political party founded in 2014 that advocates greater participation by women and young people in politics and decision-making, was also targeted.
The restrictions also covered accounts belonging to journalists Hamdi Çelikbaş and Yiğit Uzun, software developer and open-source advocate Fatih Kadir Akın, clinical psychologist Kıvılcım Kıran and painter Onur Bolat, known online as “Hikmeti Tabiyeci.” Uzun is an investigative journalist whose reporting focuses on politics, policing, the judiciary and security institutions.
The restriction on İFÖD’s official account follows separate measures targeting people and projects associated with the organization.
On October 1 authorities ordered access blocked to the X account of EngelliWeb, an İFÖD project that monitors and documents restrictions imposed on websites, news reports and social media accounts in Turkey. X subsequently withheld the account in the country.
İFÖD said X notified it on October 1 that the EngelliWeb restriction was based on a decision issued under Article 8/A of Law No. 5651 and transmitted to the platform by Turkey’s Cyber Security Presidency. The association said it had not been provided with the decision itself.
Authorities had also targeted İFÖD co-founder and law professor Yaman Akdeniz days earlier. His X account was blocked under a September 22 court order issued as part of an investigation by the Bakırköy Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and was subsequently withheld by X in Turkey.
The latest restrictions come after a sharp increase in access-blocking orders in September. İFÖD said at least 1,270 X accounts were ordered blocked during the month under Articles 8 and 8/A of Law No. 5651, with X subsequently withholding about 90 percent of them in Turkey.
The restrictions affected journalists, news organizations, LGBTQ+ and women’s rights groups, human rights organizations, academics, economists and people associated with various political and religious groups, according to İFÖD.
İFÖD said it was able to identify the specific decisions underlying only 115 of the 1,270 restrictions because most had not been publicly disclosed or provided to those affected.
Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled in 2023 in a case concerning Article 8/A that the provision lacked safeguards capable of preventing arbitrary interference by public authorities and found violations of freedom of expression and freedom of the press.
