AKP Chair and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s former lawyer Mustafa Doğan İnal had an access block imposed on 130 news reports, publications and posts about himself.
Submitting a petition to the İstanbul Anadolu 3rd Criminal Judgeship of Peace, İnal argued that his personality rights had been violated and requested an access block on news about various issues.
The judgeship censored the news by stating, “It has been concluded that the publication accusing the applicant in an outrageous manner without any news or evidence suggesting that the expressions in the publication were taken from an official document or that the mentioned incident existed cannot be considered within freedom of thought or criticism and that they were made with the intention of violating the personality rights of the applicant.”
Among the censored content was also a news report published by bianet and bianet’s project Media Monitoring Database. The related news report was about the lawsuit filed by Mustafa Doğan İnal against İzel Sezer and Doğan Ergün from İleri Haber, who had reported on the allegations of bribery against him. The court also censored the English version of the news.
Following the news in question, İnal filed a criminal complaint against the journalists who had reported on the case and the then Editor-in-Chief of bianet Nazan Özcan was summoned to depose.
Among the news websites facing an access block were also bianet, Media Monitoring Database, İleri Haber, Evrensel, T24, Gazete Duvar, BirGün, Cumhuriyet, Independent, KRT TV, Artı Gerçek, Gerçek Gündem, Mezopotamya Ajansı, Nupel, Kronos, Yeni İstiklal, toplumsal.com.tr, serbestiyet.com, internethaber.com, sondakika.com, medyafaresi.com, medyayazar.com, bursadabugun.com.
Moreover, the websites reporting / monitoring violations of freedom of expression and trials of journalists such as ifade.org.tr, mlsaturkey.com, expressioninterrupted.com, diclefiratgazeteciler.org and susma24.com as well as Ekşi Sözlük, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram posts were also affected by the censorship (July 29).
