Turkey grapples with legality, implications of Internet ban
The Turkish government blocked access to Twitter as of midnight March 20.
At midnight March 20, Turkey blocked access to Twitter. The ban came just hours after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a rally in Bursa: “There is now a court order. We will root out Twitter. The international community can say this, can say that. I don’t care at all. Everyone will see how powerful the Republic of Turkey is.”
Turkey’s Telecommunications Directorate (TIB) based its decision on four separate court orders. One is out of Samsun, a Black Sea port on Turkey's northern coast. The court decided on March 4 to restrict access to the Twitter account of a woman, whose name is kept confidential. She complained that an unknown individual or individuals took control of her Twitter account and uploaded vulgar pictures, which tarnished her reputation and caused irreparable psychological damage. Speaking to the Turkish media, her lawyer Adnan Aydin stressed at no time he asked the court to implement a full Twitter ban, but just wanted it to take action to protect his client's privacy.
Former Minister of Transportation, Maritime Affairs and Communication Binali Yildirim, a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), and his son Erkan Yildirim filed the other two court cases. They complained about two Twitter accounts: Hirsiza Oyyok (meaning, no vote to a thief) and Hirsizaoyyok.wordpress.com. There is no court decision on these two cases yet.
The fourth court case has not been verified, but it is decided by the court looking into the cases of crimes related to terror activities. “This decision taken by the anti-terror court has no value, because this court has just recently been nullified. The government passed a new law on that. Therefore, the prosecutor of this court can only share the files at hand as evidence with other courthouses, but they certainly have no authority to decide on anything whatsoever. If they do, theirs is no different than our bakery, pharmacy and grocery store deciding in a court case. For those of us working in the legal system, this decision should create that kind of a chilling effect,” Metin Feyzioglu, head of Turkey’s Bar Association, told Al-Monitor.
