ANKARA, Turkey — Sendika.org is a popular news site in Turkey, carrying news that the mainstream media often shun, wary of angering the government. However, due to a series of government-imposed bans, a website with this name no longer exists online. Readers gifted with a good memory are now going to the sendika62.org address, but it, too, may change soon.

The website’s name-changing saga began in 2015, when the now-defunct Telecommunication and Communication Authority (TIB), a body attached to the prime minister’s office, issued its first order blocking access to the site. This led to the inauguration of sendika1.org, but it didn't survive for long. Since then, the site has been gagged and revived 61 times, as the number in its current address suggests. Launched in late August, sendika62.org’s “longevity” has surprised the staff. “We have not been shut down for three weeks. This is truly intriguing,” the site’s editor-in-chief, Ali Ergin Demirhan, told Al-Monitor Sept. 17.

According to Demirhan, the frequency of the gags depends on daily political developments in the country. “We are being shut down more often when street movements are on the rise,” he said. In the two weeks leading to the April 16 referendum, the site was banned literally every day, reopening with a new name the next morning.

Lately, Demirhan has noticed a new trend in the timings. “One day, there was again an order to block access to the site, but nothing important had happened that day in Turkey. The next day, however, there was a large-scale [police] operation against Kurdish politicians. So, we are being shut down not only for our coverage of important developments but also ahead of such developments,” he said.