Turkey moves to silence jailed Erdogan rival by blocking account on X

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu has relied on social media to stay in touch with supporters from jail.

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Imamoglu, who is the main rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, can no longer send messages in Turkey to his 9.7 million followers on X. His account is still accessible abroad.

His social media feed has been his main tool for communicating with his supporters and keeping himself in the public eye.

He had been posting daily by sending messages out from prison via his lawyers. "It's like the authorities want to make him disappear," one commentator said.

Imamoglu's Republican People's Party (CHP) - the main opposition party in Turkey - told the BBC that blocking his account was a continuation of "the coup attempt on 19 March", when he was arrested.