Turkey blocks Twitter to stop ‘hate’
Images of Monday’s bomb victims and ‘malicious content’ on social media site prompted action by Ankara government
ISTANBUL // Turkey briefly blocked access to Twitter yesterday to prevent images of Monday’s deadly bombing being broadcast and to block Twitter users from calling for protests against the government.
Protests have erupted in Istanbul and other cities since Monday’s bombing, with demonstrators blaming the government for the suicide bombing in the south-eastern border city of Suruc, in which 32 people were killed.
On Tuesday, police detained a crowd of people before they could march to a local ruling party office in Istanbul. Protesters also threw fireworks as police officers attempted to disperse a crowd at another protest in the city. Many blame the govern- ment for not doing enough to prevent the attack.
Turkish officials say the Suruc bombing was part of a retaliation campaign by ISIL for the government’s crackdown on its operations in Turkey.
A government official said Turkey had asked Twitter to remove 107 URLs with images of the bombing’s aftermath. Twitter had removed about 50 of the URLs before it was blocked.
The official said access to Twitter was restored after the company “removed malicious content, including hate speech, in line with the court order”.
Earlier yesterday, a court in Suruc issued a ban on the publication in the media of images related to the bombing. The ban included the internet and social media platforms. It also ruled that access be barred to websites not complying with the ban. Turkey has periodically blocked social media. The government ordered a temporary block on Twitter and YouTube earlier this year during a hostage crisis in an Istanbul courthouse. The same sites were also blocked last year after audio recordings of a secret Turkish security meeting that suggested corruption by government officials were leaked on social media. Turkey’s highest court, however, overturned those bans deeming them to be unconstitutional. Previous moves by Turkish authorities to block the social media networks have provoked widespread criticism by western governments and human rights groups.
Authorities have, meanwhile, named the suicide bomber from Monday’s attack in Suruc.
The identity of Seyh Abdurrahman Alagoz, a 20-year-old Turkish national, was confirmed through DNA testing, officials said. The older brother of Alagoz had run a tea house where ISIL was believed to have recruited followers. The two brothers had disappeared six months ago and were reported missing two months ago by their family, who live in Adiyaman, the province north of Suruc.
Elsewhere yesterday, Kurdish militants claimed responsibility for an attack on two policemen who were found dead in their home in the town of Ceylanpinar, near the border with Syria, with gunshots in their heads. The Firat news agency said the attack was carried out in retaliation to the Suruc bombing to “punish” the policemen it claimed had collaborated with “ISIL gangs”.
Turkish officials said they had detained more than 500 people suspected of working with ISIL in the past six months and that an investigation of ISIL recruitment networks in Turkey this month had identified 21 suspects.
A court in Suruc banned the publication of images related to the bombing in the town on Monday