The shutdown occurred 10 days before local elections in Turkey.
There are more than ten million Twitter’s users in Turkey and the ban of the network produced them a big dissatisfaction. However, there is at least a way to post to Twitter from Turkey, via SMS, and this was quickly made public. Even the President Abdullah Gul and some ministers and officials bypassed the ban on Friday, to join the debate over the government’s measures.
“Shutting down social media platforms cannot be approved (…) It is not technically possible to fully block access to globally active platforms like Twitter, anyway”, wrote the Turkish President.
The Turkish Bar Association took the matter to court on Friday arguing that the blockage was unconstitutional and against the European Convention of Human Rights. Some significative reactions came from the EU officials.
“Being free to communicate and freely choose the means to do it is fundamental EU value,” said on Twitter a senior European Union official, Stefan Fule, the Union’s commissioner for enlargement. “THE Twitter ban in #Turkey is groundless, pointless, cowardly. Turkish people and intl communities will see this as censorship. It is”, wrote on Twitter the European commissioner for new technologies, Neelie Kroes.
Similar reactions were seen worldwide. The United States State Department expressed concern over “ any suggestion that social media sites could be shut down.” The British Foreign Office said clearly that “as a candidate country (to U.E.), it is important for Turkey to promote the E.U.’s core values of freedom of expression, democracy and the rule of law.”
