Turks Seek to Challenge Twitter Ban

The New York Times

ISTANBUL — A Turkish opposition party said on Friday that it would mount a legal challenge to a government order to block Twitter that has drawn European condemnation, as many users in Turkey said they were seeking ways to maintain their access to the site and some high-ranking officials continued to send messages on it.
The authorities sought to deny access to Twitter on Thursday night. The social media network had been used to spread recordings of telephone conversations and leaked documents that appear to implicate high-ranking officials, and some of their relatives and associates, in a widespread corruption investigation.
The shutdown, which people in the country began to notice around midnight, occurred 10 days before local elections and came after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at Twitter at an election rally in the western town of Bursa on Thursday, saying that he did not care about international reaction if national security was at stake.
“Twitter, mwitter! We will wipe out roots of all,” Mr. Erdogan declared in a campaign speech before the elections on March 30. “They say, ‘Sir, the international community can say this, can say that.’ I don’t care at all. Everyone will see how powerful the state of the Republic of Turkey is.”
Despite the block, people on Twitter noticed on Friday that some government officials seemed to still be using the site. In one Twitter message in Turkish, translated by a Turkish reporter, President Abdullah Gul was quoted as saying that he hoped the ban “doesn’t last too long.” Speaking on television, Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Ali Babacan, said he did not “think this will last too long,” Reuters reported. “A mutual solution needs to be found.”
The Turkish Bar Association mounted a legal challenge on Friday, saying the ban was unconstitutional and infringed on provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Echoing other protests outside Turkey, a senior European Union official, Stefan Fule, said he was “gravely concerned” by the blockage, which the Turkish authorities have sought to justify by saying Twitter had been used to violate personal privacy.
“Being free to communicate and freely choose the means to do it is fundamental EU value,” Mr. Fule said on Twitter. Mr. Fule is the Union’s commissioner for enlargement.
The Turkish telecommunications authority said on Friday that the site had been blocked after citizens complained that their privacy had been breached, news reports said. After Twitter refused to remove some messages, the authority said, “there was no other choice.”
“Access to Twitter was blocked in line with court decisions to avoid the possible future victimization of citizens,” it said.
Mr. Erdogan has faced perhaps the biggest challenge in his 11 years in office after unidentified critics began using Twitter and YouTube to leak dozens of phone calls and documents that seemed to tie government officials and business circles close to the government to a graft inquiry that began last December.
One of the recordings purports to be of the prime minister telling his son to get rid of large sums of cash on the morning of Dec. 17, when the homes of three former ministers’ sons were raided. Mr. Erdogan has repeatedly — and angrily — insisted that the recording was fake.
The prime minister’s office issued a statement before the ban was imposed, underlining what it said was Twitter’s lack of cooperation after four local courts ruled that certain content must be removed. “The presidency of Telecommunication made necessary attempts in line with court rulings, however, Twitter officials have remained indifferent to these requests,” said the statement, posted on the semiofficial Anadolu News Agency. Unless the website cooperated, the agency added, “Technically, there would be no other option than blocking access to Twitter in order to reduce damages of our citizens.”
Social media networks in Turkey have grown more popular since antigovernment demonstrations last summer, when traditional media organizations were silenced under government pressure and journalists critical of Mr. Erdogan were fired or forced to resign.
“This is certainly politically motivated prior to the local elections and the worst kind of political censorship I have seen,” said Yaman Akdeniz, a professor of cyberlaw at Bilgi University in Istanbul. “Absence of Twitter from Turkey will be a significant democratic deficit.”
Jim Prosser, a spokesman for Twitter, said the company was “looking into” the ban, adding, “That’s all we have for the moment.” In Twitter messages, the company urged people to use mobile connections to get back on the service.
New Internet restrictions, adopted by the government in February, allowed for the swift closing of websites or removal of content by court order.
In a statement on Thursday night, the United States State Department expressed concern over “any suggestion that social media sites could be shut down.”

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