The Freedom of Expression Association (İfade Özgürlüğü Derneği, İFÖD) announced on 5 October that its own X account had been blocked overnight on grounds of protecting national security and public order, and withheld from users in Türkiye by X. At least 88 other accounts were blocked in the same wave.

Among them are the former president of the judges’ association YARSAV and retired judge Ömer Faruk Eminağaoğlu, the software developer Fatih Kadir Akın, the clinical psychologist Kıvılcım Kıran, the journalists Hamdi Çelikbaş and Yiğit Uzun, the Women’s Party, and the painter Onur Bolat. Most have since been withheld from Türkiye by X.

It is the fourth such order against İFÖD’s work in five days. Its EngelliWeb monitoring account was blocked on 1 October and has since been made invisible in Türkiye. On 2 October the replacement X handle opened by T24 after its own account was blocked was blocked in turn. On 3 October at least 31 further accounts followed, among them the writer Akın Olgun and the former Boğaziçi University professor Tuna Tuğcu.

İFÖD published its September figures on 2 October, before its own account was taken down. Between 1 and 30 September at least 1,270 X accounts were blocked under Articles 8 and 8/A of Law No. 5651. Of those, 941 were blocked in the second half of the month. Around 90 per cent were subsequently withheld from Türkiye by X. The 1,227 accounts whose follower numbers could be established have more than 35 million followers between them. The orders came from at least six criminal judgeships of the peace: İstanbul 1st and 7th, Ankara 1st, Bakırköy 4th, Mersin 3rd and Adana 4th.

The breadth of the orders is visible in who they catch. On 5 October the account of Alex Crawford, a correspondent for Sky News, was withheld from Türkiye under a decision of the Bakırköy 4th Criminal Judgeship of the Peace of 13 September, in an investigation into obscenity.

Article 8/A of Law No. 5651 permits blocking within four hours on national-security or public-order grounds, before the account holder is heard, and is applied to entire accounts rather than to the posts named in the order. In Artı Media Gmbh the Constitutional Court held that the provision does not contain safeguards against arbitrary interference.

İFÖD has called on first-instance courts to refer Article 8/A to the Constitutional Court, on the authorities to lift the blocks imposed on LGBTI+ organisations and on T24, on blanket account blocking to stop, and on the reasoning of the decisions to be published.

The organisation that produced the only public count of Türkiye’s blocking orders can no longer be read in Türkiye.