Webinar: Rising Digital Repression in Türkiye and Feminist Resilience

Panelists:
Hija Kamran; Advocacy Strategist and Lead Editor, Women’s Rights Programme at the APC
APC, the Women’s Rights Programme, and GisWatch
Sinem Hun, Gender Consultant, Genderscope
Evaluating 12 years of GisWatch
Gürkan Özturan, APC Country Reporter
“Resistance and resilience in the face of repression” – 2026 Türkiye report presentation

Moderator:
Nurgül Öz, Association for Struggle Against Sexual Violence

Key themes: 

• The work of the APC Women’s Rights Program and Giswatch
• 12 years of Giswatch Türkiye reports
• 2026 Türkiye Report’s key findings and action steps. 
• Digital repression and its impact on feminist and queer activism 
• Building digital resilience and solidarity networks

With this webinar, we primarily aim to bring the key findings of the GISWatch Special Edition 2026 Turkey report—prepared by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) with support of Safety for Voices (SfV)— to activists in Turkey, and to introduce both APC and GISWatch to the Turkish context. As a launch event of the report, this webinar seeks to create a space for discussion on the online repression faced by feminist and LGBTI+ activists in Turkey, and to use the proposed action steps to help shape future agendas.

The 2026 country report addresses issues such as digital censorship and platform dependency, online harassment and troll attacks, data security, surveillance and technology platforms, other forms of exclusion, including algorithms, and the cost and accessibility of digital tools and training. It also provides recommendations on building solidarity networks and strengthening resilience in the face of online repression in Turkey.

As we plan to expand our work in the field of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), the webinar also aims to engage with feminist and queer activists and lay the groundwork for future collaborations to strengthen digital resilience and solidarity networks.

Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) is a research and advocacy initiative that monitors and evaluates developments related to the global information society.

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) was established by seven founding organisations in 1990 as an international membership-based network working to mobilise emerging electronic information and communication networks for social justice and development. APC has grown into a respected network with a total of 73 organisational members. APC’s strength comes from the experience, expertise and credibility of the people who make up the network and the organisational culture of feminist values, commitment to human rights, belief in collaboration and respect and care that APC brings to its relationship within the APC community.

Hija Kamran: (she/her) is an Advocacy Strategist and Lead Editor with the Women’s Rights Programme at the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). Through her policy and campaign work, she specialises in the intersections of technology, gender, and human rights in the Global South.

Sinem Hun: (she/her) is a human rights lawyer and founder of Genderscope, an international gender hub specialising in gender equity, leadership, and organisational development. She has over 15 years of experience at the intersection of law, gender, and policy, advising organisations including UNDP, UN Women, GIZ, and the EU Delegation. Since 2015, she has worked with the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) on issues spanning digital rights and gender justice. 

Gürkan Özturan: (he/him)  is the Media Freedom Monitoring Officer for Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF). He has a background in journalism, having served as the Executive Manager of dokuz8NEWS, and as editor of Digital Age magazine, where he focused on digital culture and the impact of new technologies on society and politics. Özturan has been the rapporteur for Turkey for the Global Information Society Watch by the APC since 2017.