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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s expressing in his interview with Italy’s state channel RAİ that probe has been launched into his son, Bilal Erdoğan on charge of money laundering and saying that “Italy should deal with mafia, not my son” has caused tension between the two countries.
Afterwards, access to the articles of BBC Türkçe, gazeteport and Diken news sites, which have brought the matter to agenda with the responses coming from Italy has been blocked.
“His attorney appealed on July 26”
Diken issued article the blocking order today (August 3). “The blocking request made by attorney of Bilal Erdoğan on July 26 at 11 a.m. was approved on the same day by 9th Criminal Judicatory of Peace at 2:30 p.m.”.
The court in its decision defended that the article titled “Money laundering probe has been launched into Bilal Erdoğan in Italy” “cannot be considered within the limits of freedom of the press, freedom of expression, right to information and criticism and qualifies to violate personal rights”, and that access blocking has been imposed on the article.
The article also covered the information that gazeteport’s article title “And Bilal Escapes from Italy” has also been blocked.
This @bbcturkce article is currently blocked and censored from Turkey: https://t.co/cWAwOCQHE1 pic.twitter.com/lysSjlD0pw
— Yaman Akdeniz (@cyberrights) 3 Ağustos 2016
Prof. Dr. Yaman Akdeniz from İstanbul Bilgi University, Department of Law on its Twitter account released the information that BBC Türkçe’s compilation of articles from the Italian press on February 16, 2016 has been censored.
What had happened?
Erdoğan in his interview with Italy’s state channel RAI had said a money laundering probe has been launched in Italy into his son, Bilal Erdoğan.
“If my son enters Italy now, maybe they will arrest him. When we ask ‘What is it about’, they have nothing to say.
“[Italy] deal with mafia instead of my son.
“Why doesn’t it intervene in the organization suing my son or in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which calls me a dictator?”
Erdoğan criticizing Italy’s legal structure had said, “Italian law has to check itself. This understanding will cause difficulties in relations with Italy”.
After the interview, Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi had responded to Erdoğan on his Twitter account:
“"In Italy we have an autonomous, independent judiciary, which acts according to the law and combats all forms of lawlessness. Judges answer to the Italian Constitution and not to the Turkish president. We call this system the rule of law, and we're proud of it". (HK/TK)