Among the blocked accounts are organizations such as Mezopotamya Agency, JinNews and X accounts of journalists with thousands of followers

NİMET ÖLMEZ, VAN

A trustee was appointed to the municipality on 15 February following the sentence given to Van Metropolitan Municipality Co-Mayor Abdullah Zeydan. Hundreds of people were arrested during the protests in the city after the appointment of the trustee. Six journalists covering the events in the city were taken into custody and later released. Following the appointment of at he trustee, many news sites and journalists' personal social media accounts were blocked from Turkey on 19-20 February.

Access to accounts of media outlets blocked

Access to the domain name “mezopotamyaajansi41.com” belonging to Mezopotamya Agency (MA) was blocked by the Adıyaman 2nd Criminal Judgeship of Peace. 

The “@JinNews_turkce” X account of JinNews, a women-based media outlet, was blocked in Turkey. JinNews has not yet been informed about the grounds for the account's closure, while JinNews has appealed the decision. 

An access block was imposed on Serhat News' X account. Serhat News published a statement about the decision and shared the e-mail they received: “We are sending you this e-mail message to inform you about the content removal decision (Van 3rd Criminal Judgeship of Peace 2025/786 D.İş) sent to Twitter by the Information and Communication Technologies and Communication Authority regarding your @serhat_news X account.” The email also stated that “according to Article 8/A of Law No. 5651, the decision must be implemented within four hours, and that the court must give final approval within 48 hours after the Information and Communication Technologies Authority notifies the court.” However, Serhat News officials stated that they had not been informed about which news item was cited as the reason for the access block.

The website of Voice of America's Kurdish service and Sur Ajans, a local news site in Diyarbakır, were also blocked on the grounds of “protecting national security and public order” by the Adıyaman 2nd Criminal Judgeship of Peace’s decision dated 19 February 2025 and numbered 2025/570. 

Access to journalists' accounts were blocked without notification

The X accounts of Oktay Candemir and Ruşen Takva, who are journalists in the city and have thousands of followers, were blocked without any justification.

Takva said on social media, “We are starting all over again. My account with 63 thousand followers was blocked from TR without notifying me yet. I write my news even if it is with smoke, I deliver it to the public even if it is with a pigeon.”

Candemir, a journalist with thousands of followers on account X, criticized the decision. “My X account was unlawfully blocked due to the news I wrote,” Candemir said. The journalist announced to his followers that he opened a new account on X.