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Twitter takes action and hires lawyer against Turkish ban

Türkiye Materials 21 March 2014 20:11 (UTC +04:00)
Twitter has taken action against the Turkish government’s blocking of access to it and hired a lawyer expert in litigations related to cyberlaw.
Twitter takes action and hires lawyer against Turkish ban

Twitter has taken action against the Turkish government's blocking of access to it and hired a lawyer expert in litigations related to cyberlaw, Hurriyet Daily News reported.

Lawyer Gonenc Gurkaynak has confirmed that he was meeting with officials from Turkey's Telecommunications Authority (TİB) in Ankara on behalf of Tweeter, adding that discussions for finding a legal solution were ongoing. In the past, Gurkaynak had worked on the legal case against the ban on YouTube.

But a government minister stressed that Twitter get a permanent legal representative and enhance its cooperation with the Turkish authorities.

Industry Minister Fikri Ishik said that the microblogging website should agree to block individual accounts if it is to resolve a row that has led the government to block access to the service.

Meanwhile, The Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB) filed a petition March 21 to an Istanbul court for the lifting of the ban.

In a written statement, TBB head Metin Feyzioglu said the Istanbul Prosecutor's Office had lost all its authority with the recent legal changes removing specially authorized prosecutors and therefore could not rule to implement such a ban.

"With the ban, the TTB and millions of citizens cannot access Twitter for reasons we still do not know," the statement read. "A total ban on Twitter access is a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Turkish Constitution and Law 5651 that includes Internet regulations. The TTB has applied to the courts for the immediate lifting of the ban. In addition, criminal complaints have been filed for those responsible for the ban ruling and the officials who applied the ban," Feyzioglu said in the statement.

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