Turkey bans Wikipedia, saying it facilitated ‘smear campaign’

ISTANBUL — If you try to open Wikipedia in Turkey right now, you’ll turn up a swirling loading icon, then a message that the server timed out.

Turkey has blocked Wikipedia. If you’re inside the country, you can only access the online encyclopedia through a virtual private network connection to a system outside the country.

Turkish officials reportedly asked the online encyclopedia to remove content by writers it said were “supporting terror.”

Wikipedia “has started acting as part of the circles who carry out a smear campaign against Turkey in the international arena, rather than being cooperative in fight against terror,” ministry officials said. It tried to show Turkey “at the same level and in cooperation with terror groups.”

The Ministry of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications told the Daily Sabah, a pro-government newspaper, that Wikipedia was blocked for “becoming an information source acting with groups conducting a smear campaign against Turkey in the international arena.” The ministry did not cite specific examples of offending content. Officials also said the site would not be unblocked until Wikipedia opened an office in the country and started paying taxes.

Turkish law allows the country’s leaders to ban access to websites deemed obscene or a threat to national security. A court has two days to decide whether the ban should be upheld.

This was just the latest crackdown on free speech and expression in Turkey. The monitoring group Turkey Blocks and other organizations have accused the government of occasionally blocking social-media sites such as Twitter or Facebook, particularly after militant attacks. (The government has denied this.) But according to the BBC, half of all requests to Twitter to remove offensive content have come from Turkey.