On 30 September 2026, Istanbul's 1st Criminal Court of Peace ordered Turkey's independent news portal T24 blocked, website and social media accounts together. According to Reuters, the Justice Ministry said the basis was 118 pieces of content from the past year that it deemed "LGBT propaganda". The decision went to Turkey's Cyber Security Presidency for enforcement. Since mid-September, a nationwide operation by prosecutors in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir, branded "My Family is Safe", has also won orders blocking the websites and social accounts of about a dozen LGBTQ+ and feminist organisations, EFF reported on 9 October. EFF puts the number of people detained at over 60. Other reporting gives a larger figure, which we address below.
The strongest case for the state
Governments have a legitimate interest in acting quickly against content that is illegal. Child exploitation, incitement to violence and non-consensual imagery cannot wait for a full trial. Turkey's government frames its policy as protecting family values, and the EFF piece ties the operation to Erdoğan's "Decade of the Family" programme. A state can lawfully hold views on social policy. Blocking orders are also faster and cheaper than prosecutions, and a quick judicial order beats an executive takedown with no judge involved.
That is the best version of the argument. It fails on proportionality, the test that separates content regulation from censorship.
What was actually blocked
The T24 order is not aimed at one unlawful post. Bianet reports that the court acted on a request from the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office. It found 118 column articles "LGBTI+ propaganda" and issued a separate removal order for each. The same ruling blocked the entire outlet. That means every other article T24 has published, whatever its subject, became unreachable in Turkey within hours.
The reports we reviewed do not name a statute for the "propaganda" finding. EFF says the wider probe was opened under Article 226 of the Turkish Penal Code (obscenity). It says the "My Family Is Safe" operation falls under Article 220 (criminal organisations) and the Law on Associations. Homosexuality itself is not illegal in Turkey, as EFF notes. Turkey has no statutory offence titled "LGBT propaganda" that we could identify in the sources reviewed, so the label appears to be doing work the statute does not.
On the scale of the detentions, sources differ. EFF says over 60 members and activists were detained. Bianet says the operations began on 12 September 2026, more than 100 people were taken into custody, and 82 were jailed pending trial on "obscenity" charges. We cannot reconcile the two from the public record. Both describe a mass operation, and both describe online blocking as part of it. Bianet adds that hundreds of social media accounts of rights groups, journalists and activists have been blocked.
This is a known failure, not a new one
Turkey's internet-blocking framework is Law No. 5651, and its misuse has been judged before. In Ahmet Yıldırım v. Turkey (application no. 3111/10, 18 December 2012), the European Court of Human Rights found a violation of Article 10. A court had blocked all of Google Sites to stop access to one site. The Strasbourg court held that the measure had a statutory basis but failed the foreseeability test: the provision gave authorities too much discretion, and the domestic courts did not weigh the competing interests or consider less far-reaching options. It also described the internet as "one of the principal means by which individuals exercise their right to freedom of expression".
That reasoning applies directly to T24. A court that cites 118 articles has already identified the specific material it objects to. It can order those items removed, and it did. Blocking the whole outlet adds nothing for the stated aim. It does take down everything else the outlet publishes.
The pattern has also recurred. Amnesty International documented a July 2019 Ankara decision that blocked 136 web addresses, including the news outlet Bianet. It said the decision gave no explanation of how the listed addresses met the cited provision, Article 8/A of Law 5651. Courts of peace that rule on a prosecutor's request alone, with no adversarial hearing and with the outlet unaware of the case, are structurally prone to this outcome.
Why it matters beyond Turkey
An open internet depends on narrow, reviewable restrictions. When a blanket block hits a newsroom, readers lose a source, advertisers and platforms register risk, and other outlets learn to self-censor before any order arrives. Bianet notes that outlets in Turkey commonly evade bans by changing domain addresses, and T24 urged readers to install its mobile app. Evasion means the block fails on its own terms while still imposing costs on legitimate journalism. Reuters reports that T24 said it would appeal once it received official notice.
What a proportionate regime looks like
- Item-level orders first. Where specific content is judged unlawful, remove that content. Reserve whole-site blocks for outlets whose main purpose is illegal.
- Notice and an adversarial hearing. The publisher should be heard before an order, or within days, with a reasoned decision that names the statute and each item.
- Automatic review. Orders on journalism should expire or be re-examined by a higher court on a short, fixed timetable.
- Public transparency. Enforcement bodies should publish the orders they carry out.
The EFF post says it joins hundreds of organisations in calling for the release of those detained and the unblocking of the affected sites and accounts. We agree with that demand. Strasbourg set out the test in 2012, and Turkey's courts have not applied it.