An İstanbul court has ordered an access block on the website and social media accounts of the independent news outlet T24 as per a request from the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office.
The decision, issued by the İstanbul 1st Penal Judgeship of Peace, cited 118 column articles published over the past year that constituted "LGBTI+ propaganda." The judgeship separately issued removal orders for each article.
The outlet’s website was banned a few hours after the ruling. While X implements most of ban orders, T24's account has so far remained accessible for users in Turkey.
The outlet called on its readers to install its mobile app to evade censorship. Also, news outlets in Turkey typically circumvent access bans by changing their domain addresses.
Launched in 2009, T24 is one of the largest independent news outlets in Turkey. It has a following of over 1.9 million on X and over 238,000 on Instagram.
The outlet said it had recently been subjected to a smear campaign on social media.
The decision comes amid a sweeping crackdown on the LGBTI+ movement in Turkey, dubbed as "My Family Is Safe" operations by authorities.
As part of the operations launched on Sep 12, more than 100 people were taken into custody during raids. Eighty-two people were subsequently jailed pending trial, including LGBTI+ rights advocates and activists on "obscenity" charges.
Also, hundreds of social media accounts belonging to rights groups, journalists and activists were blocked by courts.
Police raids, online censorship target Turkey’s LGBTI+ community in new crackdown
'This operation declares that the Turkish state considers LGBTI+s criminals for simply existing'
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