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Middle East Eye
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Middle East Eye
YouTube and Spotify accused of 'censorship' after blocking left-wing folk group in Turkey
YouTube and Spotify have been accused of "censorship" after the Turkish government blocked videos and songs by the left-wing folk band Grup Yorum. According to Turkish freedom of expression organisation IFOD, Turkish authorities blocked access to more than 450 videos by Grup Yorum on YouTube last week in the name of "protecting national security and public order". They said the 454 clips, shared since 2006 by dozens of YouTube accounts, had totalled more than 205 million views. IFOD said in a statement on Friday that at least one of the group's albums had also been blocked on Spotify and Apple Music. A similar request was put to streaming site Deezer, but they refused to comply. Legislation passed in 2022 handed the government's Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) powers to compel social media companies to comply with requests to take down content and hand over user data or to be subject to reduction of their bandwidth. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Outlets such as X (formerly Twitter) have blocked scores of accounts in Turkey in recent months at the request of the government, mainly leftists and oppositions figures. 'Perception of complicity' Yaman Akdeniz, founder of IFOD, told Middle East Eye that social media platforms had been facing renewed pressure following the outcry over the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu in March. "They all face substantial fines as well as threats of throttling of their services. So, at first sight, it may seem understandable that they all comply," he said. 'Their silence regarding the blocking of Grup Yorum's songs and albums suggests a reluctance to challenge or even acknowledge the censorship' - Yaman Akdeniz, IFOD "However, their silence regarding the geographical blocking of Grup Yorum's songs and albums suggests a reluctance to publicly challenge or even acknowledge the censorship. The lack of transparency and official announcements from these platforms exacerbates the perception of complicity." Middle East Eye contacted YouTube's owner Google and Spotify for comment, but neither had responded at time of publication. Since their founding in 1985, Grup Yorum's songs have touched on a wide range of progressive causes, including lauding socialist icons such Deniz Gezmis - a Marxist revolutionary hanged in 1968, criticising the killing of 15-year old Berkin Elvan by police in 2014, gentrification, imperialism, women's rights, the struggle for Kurdish rights, and covering famous leftist anthems such as Bella Ciao and the Internationale. In response to the blocking of their songs, Grup Yorum announced on Monday that they were giving away their entire discography for free, posting a link on their social media feed. Grup Yorum: Turkish folk band vows to continue struggle after pausing death fast Read More » On Tuesday, they called for a three-day boycott of the platforms. "We are not dependent on these monopolized platforms," they wrote on X. "They are trying to erase Grup Yorum, who have been singing the people's folk songs for 40 years, from everywhere. They will not succeed!" The group have long been accused by the government of association with the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C), an armed Marxist-Leninist group responsible for carrying out numerous attacks on government officials and foreign officials in Turkey and abroad. The band's line-up changes regularly, with members frequently spending time in and out of prison or fleeing abroad. In 2020, singer and bassist Ibrahim Gokcek died after an almost year-long "death fast" protesting the ban on the band's concerts and the imprisonment of a number of band members.
The Sun
08-05-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
Access to jailed Istanbul mayor's X account blocked
ISTANBUL: Turkish authorities on Thursday blocked access to the social media account of Istanbul's jailed opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who has nearly 10 million followers on X. Imamoglu, who was detained on March 19 on corruption charges he strongly denies, is seen as the biggest rival to longtime leader President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The arrest could stop Imamoglu taking part in presidential elections scheduled for 2028. It was not possible to access to his X account on Thursday morning. A message read: 'Account Withheld -- @ekrem_imamoglu has been withheld in TR (Turkey) in response to a legal demand.' A spokesperson for the Istanbul municipality confirmed access to the account was blocked, without giving further details. Watchdog group EngelliWeb, which reports Internet censorship and blocked web sites in Turkey, said on X that access to Imamoglu's account had been blocked on national security grounds. The account 'has been blocked under Article 8/A of Law No. 5651, on the grounds of protecting national security and public order, and has been made invisible in Turkey by X', it said. Yaman Akdeniz, a law professor and head of Turkey's Freedom of Expression Association (IFOD), said the details of the blocking order had not been revealed yet, but added: 'Through our EngelliWeb project we detected the existence of an article 8/A order.' 'This means that the arbitrary order was issued to protect national security and public order. Unfortunately, I am not surprised as hundreds of accounts have been subject to such orders since Imamoglu's arrest,' he told AFP. 'X has officially become the long arm of the Turkish law enforcement agencies,' he said. Mass rally Lawyer Gonenc Gurkaynak said he would object to the court order. 'Regarding the court decision imposing an access restriction on Mr Ekrem Imamoglu's account on X, upon X's request and in my capacity as X's independent attorney, I will be filing an objection application this morning at the relevant court, comprehensively presenting all legal grounds for our objections on this matter,' he said on his social media account. In a show of solidarity with Imamoglu, some X users replaced their profile pictures with the Istanbul mayor's. On his last message on X, Imamoglu, who is jailed in Silivri prison on the outskirts of Istanbul, had urged his supporters to join a protest rally held Wednesday, which was called by his CHP party. Tens of thousands of people took part in the Istanbul rally, one of the biggest in recent weeks. In the days after Imamoglu's arrest, tens of thousands of people took part in near-daily protests. But numbers had dwindled in recent weeks. Wednesday's protest was held outside Istanbul University, which had stripped Imamoglu of his degree the day before his arrest.
Middle East Eye
14-02-2025
- Business
- Middle East Eye
Elon Musk denounced after X acquiesces to Turkey's censorship requests
Rights groups and journalists have criticised X owner and executive chairman Elon Musk after the social media platform complied with a Turkish government request to block scores of accounts in the country, including a number of prominent journalists and news outlets. According to Turkish freedom of expression organisation IFOD, an access ban on 126 accounts requested by the government was approved by a single decision of a criminal court in Ankara on 5 February on the grounds of "protecting national security and public order". Those blocked are largely individuals and outlets associated with the Gulenist movement - blamed by Turkey for the 2016 coup attempt - or with pro-Kurdish, left-wing and liberal leanings. Some of the most high profile outlets blocked in the country include the left-leaning Arti Gercek and Yeni Yasam, the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya News Agency (MA) and the women-focused Kurdish outlet Jin News. Among the journalists blocked are the Berlin-based Hayko Bagdat - who has more than one million followers on X - and Metin Cihan, an independent journalist who has focused on Turkey's trade relations with Israel during the Gaza war. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Bagdat, an Armenian-Turkish journalist who has lived in Germany since 2016 due to threats and harassment in Turkey, told Middle East Eye that authoritarianism was becoming commonplace around the world and Musk was helping enable it. He added that platforms like X had allowed Turkish dissidents to maintain a presence in the country from exile, which "greatly unsettles" the government. 'In a world where a figure like Elon Musk is influential, we need to repeatedly discuss the concept of freedom of expression' - Hayko Bagdat, journalist "Despite having 1.2 million followers and a verified account on the X platform, where I have been active for 20 years, my account was shut down by a local court decision," he said. "In a world where a figure like Elon Musk is influential, we need to repeatedly discuss the concept of freedom of expression." Musk, a self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist", has overseen a huge increase in approvals for removal requests submitted by governments since taking over the company former known as Twitter in 2022. According to a transparency report X published last year and a Washington Post review of past disclosure data, the social media site acted on 71 percent of legal requests it received to remove content in the first half of 2024, up 20 percent from its previous reported figure in 2021. The report said X had taken action in 68 percent of the cases requested by Turkey, which amounted to 9,364 requests in the first half of 2024. "Under previous management, Twitter would challenge censorship decisions and resist government orders, particularly regarding accounts belonging to journalists and media outlets. However, recent developments indicate that Elon Musk's X platform has effectively become the long arm of the law enforcement agencies in Turkey," IFOD founder Yaman Akdeniz told MEE. "As X swiftly complies with government takedown requests and withholds accounts in Turkey, this pattern will likely continue, further eroding free expression in the country." Journalist crackdown For many years, Turkey has regularly been described as the world's worst jailer of journalists by media freedom organisations. On 6 January, the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA), a Turkish rights group monitoring press freedom, said there were at least 30 journalists and media workers in prison and four under house arrest in the country. It said it monitored 281 freedom of expression trials in 2024 involving 1,856 defendants, 366 of whom were journalists. UK revoked Turkish academic's visa over Hamas document found on phone Read More » The crackdown on critical journalists escalated after the 2016 coup attempt. Last month, prosecutors opened an investigation against the Istanbul bar association on charges of "spreading terrorist propaganda", accusing it of links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), an armed group who have fought a guerilla war with Turkey since 1984. The probe was opened after lawyers called for an investigation into the death of two Kurdish journalists - Cihan Bilgin and Nazim Dastan - in Syria in late December in a suspected Turkish drone strike. Since the ousting of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December, Ankara has stepped up its campaign against Kurdish-led groups who control much of the north of the country. Turkey accuses these groups of being an outgrowth of the PKK. "In Turkey, the Erdogan regime continues to attack opponents every day with new court rulings and police pressures to permanently silence democratic and equality pursuits," Bagdat told MEE. "At the same time, developments in Syria are additionally leading to the targeting of sensitive voices regarding the Kurdish issue."
