Scores of journalists, activists, and politicians gathered outside the Constitutional Court Oct. 7 to protest censorship of social media accounts.
Özgür Özel, chair of the Yeni Party, had called for the gathering to demand the reversal of scores of account blocks announced by the Cybersecurity Board— the watchdog affiliated with the presidency.
The blocks were justified by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which carried out raids and arrests of LGBTQ+ groups under the slogan “My Family is Safe”. Numerous people and organisations were swept up in the operations, including the T24 online news site, which was shut down for allegedly propagandising for LGBTQ+ causes.
Speaking at the protest for the Yeni Party, MP Gökhan Günaydın urged the court to urgently review the case and cancel the decisions, because “without freedom of the press and freedom of expression, there is nothing left.”
Kerem Altıparmak, a lawyer who campaigns for online freedoms, said his association already has almost a thousand appeals against internet blocks before the top court. The blocks mean users in Turkey cannot access accounts seen everywhere else internationally.
“We weren’t just blocked from access,” said Yıldız Tar, editor-in-chief of the magazine linked to the KAOS GL campaigning group. “Right now, the members of our association’s executive and supervisory boards are being held in Sincan Prison under very poor conditions. They’re trying to make us the scapegoat to cover up all their failures and complicity, but let me be clear: we are no one’s scapegoat.”
On the night of Oct. 5, 88 X accounts were blocked. Among them were those of retired judge Ömer Faruk Eminağaoğlu, software developer Fatih Kadir Akın, clinical psychologist Kıvılcım Kıran, journalists Hamdi Çelikbaş and Yiğit Uzun, the Women’s Party, and artist Onur Bolat. An earlier wave of blocks had included academics and stock market commentators, with the number exceeding a thousand according to journalist associations.
Also, Turkish authorities blocked access to the X account of Sky News correspondent Alex Crawford under a court order citing 'obscenity' and LGBTQ-related content. Media watchdogs, including the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), urged X to reject unilateral blocking demands from Turkish administrative bodies without independent judicial oversight.
