Access to at least 55 accounts on X, including those belonging to journalists, media outlets and lawyers, has been blocked in Turkey on national security and public order grounds.
The affected accounts include Bizim TV, BirGün newspaper reporters Meral Danyıldız and Sarya Toprak, ANKA News Agency courthouse reporter Esra Tokat and lawyers Sena Yazıbağlı and Tuncay Koç, according to EngelliWeb, a project of the Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD).
Many of the accounts had posted about a fund crisis, the murder of Narin Güran and the Furkan Movement. X has made most of the accounts inaccesseible for users in Turkey.
The restrictions are the latest in a series of measures targeting the social media accounts of journalists, rights advocates, media outlets and women’s and LGBTI+ organizations since earlier this month.
Accounts belonging to the Mor Çatı Women’s Shelter Foundation, Lambdaistanbul, SPoD and several other women’s and LGBTI+ organizations have recently been restricted.
The accounts of the Evrensel newspaper, Kısa Dalga, Amnesty International Turkey, Academics for Peace and the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) have also faced similar restrictions.
Journalists Özlem Akarsu Çelik, Fırat Fıstık, Hilmi Hacaloğlu, Alptekin Dursunoğlu, İnan Mutlu, Canan Kaya, Naz Yavuzarslan, Dinçer Gökçe, Ersin Eroğlu, İrfan Değirmenci, Şirin Payzın, Yıldız Tar, Yusuf Çelik, Göksu Başaran, Nisan Çıra, Zilan Azad and Oğulcan Özgenç have also had their accounts witheld in Turkey. (HA/VK)
