Turkish journalist Amberin Zaman said Wednesday that X blocked access in Turkey to her new account after an earlier block against her main account under a court order.
Shame on@X for bowing to Turkish government pressure + blocking access to my new account after blocking this one. On what grounds? What rules have I violated? What crime have I committed? None! Zero!@CPJMENA@RSF_inter@hrw@amnesty@mlsaturkey@USAMBTurkiye@StateDept_NEA… https://t.co/dDmC56kbte
— Amberin Zaman (@amberinzaman) November 26, 2025
She asked the company to explain why her account was restricted.
Zaman is a veteran reporter who covers Turkey and regional politics for Al Monitor and has long worked outside the country after facing pressure from Turkish authorities.
Her case comes during a broader wave of court ordered blocks aimed at journalists and political figures whose reporting and public statements reach large audiences inside Turkey.
Turkey’s internet law, Law No. 5651, allows courts to order social media companies to hide accounts inside the country for reasons that include national security, public order, terrorism propaganda or false information.
Access to Zaman’s previous account was blocked in Turkey in late 2024 after a court order that cited this law.
Turkish journalists living in exile say their accounts have been repeatedly targeted on the same legal grounds, including investigative reporter Cevheri Güven, whose account was first restricted before the 2023 presidential election and again during a series of blocks in 2024.
Güven told Turkish Minute that whenever he tries to open a new account, the account is suspended as soon as he uses his real name, a pattern he says shows X enforcing restrictions that go beyond court orders and creating what amounts to a permanent ban on certain journalists.
The pattern also extends to political figures inside Turkey.
Ekrem İmamoğlu, the jailed mayor of Istanbul and the main rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has seen multiple accounts blocked in Turkey under the same national security clause of Law No. 5651.
A court ordered access to İmamoğlu’s main account blocked in April 2025.
His English language account was then blocked in May.
New accounts created by his campaign were blocked three times in November under fresh court decisions that carried the same justification.
Access to the blocked accounts remains available outside Turkey, but several journalists say their followers abroad no longer see their new posts in their feeds, which they describe as a shadowban by X’s algorithm.
Human Rights Watch said X complied with more than 85 percent of Turkish government legal demands in the second half of 2024, a rate that rights groups say enables selective censorship inside the country.
