News portals receive fake court orders demanding removal of articles

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Diken and Gazete Duvar news portals received fake court orders demanding the removal of several articles, a lawyer from the Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD) has revealed.

Fake court orders had the same number and were made to appear as if they had been issued by the same judge, Prof. Yaman Akdeniz said on Twitter on Friday (September 10).

According to the fake documents, the orders were issued by the Bakırköy 2nd Penal Judgeship but the judge whose name is written in the documents is in charge of the Gaziosmanpaşa Penal Judgeship, said Akdeniz.

Gazete Duvar received the fake order in July and Diken received it this month, he noted.

The service of summons that was sent to Diken was also fake, Akdeniz said. "When the PTT [postal service] tracking number on this fake envelope is queried, it is understood that it was sent by the Gaziosmanpaşa 3rd Penal Judgeship of Peace. However, Bakırköy 2nd Penal Judgeship of Peace is written on the fake envelope."

Gazete Duvar filed a criminal complaint for forgery of official documents but prosecutors dismissed the complaint because an original document did not exist.

"There is serious fraud and some news articles are attempted to be removed by sending fake orders to news websites. We don't know at the moment to whom these face orders were sent and how many articles were removed," Akdeniz wrote.

2. Bugüne kadar birbirine benzer ve aynı kişiler tarafından gönderilen 2 farklı kararla karşılaştık. Bu kararlar Temmuz ayında @gazeteduvar'a ve Eylül ayı içinde ise @DikenComTr'e gönderildi. pic.twitter.com/iW46kisrF5

— Yaman Akdeniz (@cyberrights) September 10, 2021

(KÖ/VK)