A Turkish court has imposed another access ban on a website used by a media outlet critical of government policy on the Kurdish issue, citing national security.
The court has blocked access to the “mezopotamyaajansi42.com” website, the latest in a series of domain bans targeting a pro-Kurdish news agency operating under rotating addresses to evade previous shutdowns.
The decision was reportedly issued by the Adıyaman 1st Penal Court of Peace, though no official notice was published. The agency had been using the domain following a February ban on its previous address, “mezopotamyaajansi41.com,” ordered by the Adıyaman 2nd Penal Court of Peace.
The website domains used by the agency typically change by increasing a number in their URL after each ban. In recent years, various courts across the country have blocked dozens of these addresses, including a 2024 decision by an Erzurum court and a 2021 ruling from Diyarbakır.
Mezopotamya’s Instagram account was also restricted this week, rendering it invisible to users in Turkey, according to the Freedom of Expression Association’s (İFÖD) EngelliWeb platform. The account, which had over 116,000 followers, was blocked under Article 8/A of Turkey’s internet law at the request of the Information and Communication Technologies Authority.
The İstanbul-based Mezopotamya news agency was established in 2017 in the wake of the closure of many Kurdish news outlets and agencies by government decrees during a state of emergency declared in the aftermath of a failed coup in July 2016. It publishes articles in Kurdish, Turkish and English.
The Turkish government closed down some 200 media outlets that used to engage in a critical reporting and arrested dozens of journalists following the coup attempt under the pretext of an anti-coup fight.
Kurdish media outlets and journalists are subjected to frequent legal harassment in Turkey due to their coverage related to the Kurdish issue and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
Their professional activities are frequently seen as propaganda for the PKK.
The Kurdish issue, a term prevalent in Turkey’s public discourse, refers to the demand for equal rights by the country’s Kurdish population and their struggle for recognition.
According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), 90 percent of the national media in Turkey, which was ranked 158th among 180 countries in the RSF’s 2024 World Press Freedom Index, is owned by pro-government businessmen who toe the official line.
The deterioration in internet freedoms in Turkey was also documented in a report published by the US-based Freedom House in October, which showed that internet freedom in Turkey has steadily declined over the past decade, with the country again ranking among the “not free” countries concerning online freedoms.
Turkey has a score of 31 in a 100-point index with scores being based on a scale of 0 (least free) to 100 (most free) in the Freedom House’s 2024 Freedom on the Net report.