An Istanbul court has ordered X to make the presidential candidacy office account of jailed Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu invisible inside Turkey, and X has complied while telling the world it disagrees.
The block is geographic. According to a copy of the order X posted, the court told the platform to restrict access domestically to protect national security and public order. Cumhuriyet, which numbers the decision 2026/6804, reported a third ground on the same order, the prevention of crime. Everyone outside Turkey can still read the account. Turkish users cannot.
Those readers are his electorate. The Republican People's Party elected Imamoglu its presidential candidate in an internal party vote days after his detention in March 2025. He is the main political rival of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has held the presidency for nearly 12 years after 11 years as prime minister. UPI reports that the election is not scheduled until 2028. The account was created in November 2025 and has more than 225,700 followers, per UPI.
X put its own statement out through its Global Government Affairs account. "Although Türkiye's laws force us to comply with the order, we are challenging the order in court and, in the spirit of full transparency, are sharing the court order," the team said. It is challenging the order "because we believe keeping the platform accessible in Turkey is vital to supporting freedom of expression and access to information," the team added. Refusing carries a price, X said - "severe sanctions," including throttling the whole platform inside the country.
X published the order, is appealing it and switched the account off. Publishing the order is more transparency than most platforms offer, and going back to court is more than most bother with. X made a similar challenge to the May 2025 block of Imamoglu's personal account, which has more than 9.4 million followers according to UPI. That one is still pending at the Constitutional Court, awaiting a decision after recent filings.
Turkish authorities detained Imamoglu and more than 100 others on March 19, 2025. Yahoo reported that his university degree had been revoked the day before.
He was formally arrested four days later on suspicion of unlawfully recording personal data, accepting bribes, rigging public tenders and forming an organization for the purpose of committing crimes.
Yahoo reported the arrest was on terrorism and corruption charges, and The New Region reported that Imamoglu and other party leaders face corruption and espionage-related trials they say are politically motivated. UPI reported that prosecutors allege the organization he led defrauded public institutions of about $3.9 billion since 2015, and The New Region and Yahoo report prosecutors seeking up to 2,430 years in prison. Imamoglu and his party deny all of it. Human Rights Watch called the initial detention "a politically motivated move to stifle lawful political activities."
The reason given was national security and public order. It was the reason given in April 2025, when, according to the İfade Özgürlüğü Derneği, which runs the EngelliWeb project, an Istanbul court blocked Imamoglu's personal account under Article 8/A of Law No. 5651.
The group puts a May 2025 block under the same article on his international account, while UPI and Reuters date the May 2025 restriction to the personal account instead. The candidacy office accounts were then blocked three times in November 2025 alone, on November 13, 14 and 16. All three came under Article 8/A, on that same ground. The account was renamed after each block and blocked again. Kısa Dalga reported a further blocking decision on March 12, 2026 against the @CBAdayOfisi handle, and EngelliWeb, through Medyascope, dates another to July 16, 2026, after which the account was renamed CAOIletisim11.
Kısa Dalga reported that the current handle went dark for Turkish users around 11pm on August 3. That is at least the eighth blocking order against accounts in Imamoglu's name since April 2025, and at least the third time X has made one invisible inside Turkey. A wrapper this reusable is not a security finding. It is a switch.
The court order itself was issued on July 29. It cited a Turkish law letting the president or relevant ministries block internet publications to protect life and property, national security and public order, prevent crime, or protect public health. UPI reported that the order X shared refers to an Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office investigation into publicly disseminating misleading information.
It reads: "as a result of open-source research, it was determined that the account identified below had shared content alleged to constitute the offense under investigation and that the content was of a nature capable of disturbing public peace." But it names no post, no date and no words.
The reporting on the block carries no response from the Turkish government or the court. Imamoglu has been in prison for more than a year and is on trial alongside 413 co-defendants, according to The New Region. Medyascope reported that a court has blocked his YouTube channel too, though YouTube has not yet made the channel invisible from Turkey.
