TGC (Turkish Journalists Association) filed a lawsuit against BTK (Information and Communication Technologies Authority) for cancellation of Twitter ban - a ruling issued on 21 March 2014 and consulted Ankara 5. Administrative Court in order to lift the ban on the grounds that the ban is against the freedom of press and expression. It was emphasized that TGC members are also “twitter” users and due to the ban they cannot access their accounts and communicate with their followers.
The statement read as follows:
“The freedom of press and expression rise above three basic principles. To know the news and to access the news, to criticize and to comment the news and the ideas, the right to spread the news freely.
“These principles must exist at every incident and every time simultaneously. If the government prevents a principle, this is an evidence that the freedom of press and expression is damaged, moreover there is no freedom of press. The government violated the freedom of press and expression arbitrarily by banning twitter without any objective data.”
The twitter ban was issued only few hours after PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said “We will root out Twitter” in his Bursa [a district in Marmara Region of Turkey] meeting on March 20.
Blocked by DNS and IP, Twitter cannot be accessed without services like VPN or Tor (EA/BD/BM)
