Turkish authorities have blocked access to the X account of Deutsche Welle Turkish service reporter Alican Uludağ on national security and public order grounds, the Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD) reported.
Uludağ’s account and 13 individual posts were blocked under Article 8/A of Internet Law No. 5651. Both the account and the posts are currently inaccessible to users in Turkey.
The blocked posts included criticism of the detention of actor Levent Üzümcü, criminal investigations targeting journalists and municipalities run by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the pretrial detention of Fatoş Pınar Türker, an executive at the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality.
Other posts criticized then-chief of general staff Hulusi Akar’s handling of a 2016 coup attempt, detentions ahead of a NATO summit and the killing of suspected ISIS member Muhammed Kavi during a police raid in Ankara.
The restrictions came days after Uludağ was briefly detained over a post criticizing Turkey’s judicial system and released under judicial supervision.
Uludağ was previously arrested in February for a social media post on charges of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He was released at his first hearing on May 21 after spending 90 days in pretrial detention. His trial is underway.
The restrictions were imposed under Turkey’s internet law, which allows authorities to seek the removal of online content or block access to it in urgent cases involving national security, public order, public safety, crime prevention, public health or the protection of life and property.
Turkey has faced repeated criticism from press freedom groups and human rights organizations for its restrictions on free expression and its pressure on independent journalism. Social media platforms are frequently targeted by government orders, especially when posts involve high-ranking officials or politically sensitive material.
The US-based democracy watchdog Freedom House placed Turkey among the five countries with the steepest long-term declines in internet freedom in its “2025 Freedom on the Net” report. Citing broad censorship practices and intensified digital controls over the past 15 years, the organization gave Turkey a score of 31 out of 100, putting it in the bottom tier of the 72 countries assessed.
According to Expression Interrupted, a press freedom monitoring group, 21 journalists are currently behind bars in Turkey. The country’s deteriorating media landscape was further pointed out in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), where it was ranked 163rd out of 180 nations.
This article is republished from the Stockholm Center for Freedom.