Turkey lifts Twitter ban after court ruling Turkeys telecoms authority lifted a two-week-old ban on Twitter on Thursday, after the constitutional court ruled the previous day that the block breached freedom of expression, a spokesman from the office of the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said. Access to Twitter was blocked in the runup to last Sundays local elections after a stream of leaked recordings of senior officials appeared on the site. Turkeys Official Gazette published the courts ruling on Thursday morning, further piling pressure on the telecoms authority, TIB, to lift the ban. TIB removed court orders blocking the site from its webpage on Thursday afternoon, after which Erdoğans office confirmed the ban was no more. YouTube however remains offline in Turkey. The TIB blocked it one week after blocking Twitter. Legal challenges are pending. Following the constitutional courts decision, the Turkish president, Abdullah Gül, who has opposed the bans, was quoted as saying both websites should be made available. Twitter, which is based in San Francisco, said in a tweet that it welcomed the ruling. Within minutes of the Twitter ban being lifted, the site was flooded with messages, with one user saying: Welcome back to Twitter, Turkey.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 20:45:21 +0000