The Turkish authorities blocked access to the X account of the imprisoned mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, the president of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has almost 10 million subscribers, AFP said.
A precise message: “Restricted account – @Ekrem_imamoglu was restricted in TR (Türkiye) in response to a legal request.”
Silence the dissonant voices
This blockade arrives in the day after a demonstration of the opposition to the University of Istanbul, followed by tens of thousands of people, the most important crowd in a month.
On the other hand, the story of the mayor of the mayor, @imamoglu_int, remains accessible.
From the arrest of March 19 of Ekrem Imamoglu, accused of “corruption”, which he denies, and his location in detention, the mayor continues to express through messages published in his account X by relatives.
In his last message about X, the opponent jailed in Silivri prison, in the suburbs of Istanbul, urged his followers to join the rally summoned Wednesday night by his group, the CHP.
According to the Engelliweb surveillance group, which reports censorship on the Internet and places blocked in Turkey, access to the mayor’s account was blocked for “national security protection and public order protection”, under “Article 8/A of Law No. 5651.
Thousands of Turks on the street
The arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu, while preparing to be invested by his party for the presidential elections of 2028, thousands of people in the streets of Istanbul, and caused demonstrations in dozens of cities in Türkiye for a week.
Before repression and almost 2,000 arrests, its number had gradually decreased in recent weeks.
According to Yaman Akdeniz, law professor and director of the Turkish Association for Freedom of Expression (IFOD), the reasons for the blockade have not yet been revealed, but “thanks to our Engelliweb project, we were able to detect the existence of an order under article 8/A”.
“X has officially become the arm of Turkish police forces,” he added.
The lawyer Gönenç Gürkaynak has announced that he would dispute this decision to Justice: “At the request of X and in my quality as an independent lawyer for X, I will request an objection to the competent court this morning,” he said in his own account.
As a sign of solidarity with the mayor, many subscribers showed a portrait of Ekrem Imamoglu in the profile photo.
Source: BFM TV
