Turkey blocks Kurdish websites as Twitter and Facebook slows down

Baku. 27 July. REPORT.AZ/ Turkey has blocked a number of Kurdish and left-wing news websites while many users also experienced difficulty accessing Twitter and Facebook for an unspecified reason on July 25 as Turkish fighter jets continued to bomb the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, Report informs citing Turkish media.

The decision imposed early July 25 by Turkey’s Telecommunications Directorate (TIB), a government-controlled Internet watchdog, targeted news websites based not only in Turkey, but also in northern Iraq.

The blocked websites include Rudaw, BasNews, DİHA, ANHA, daily Özgür Gündem, Yüksekova Haber, Sendika.Org and RojNews. When trying to access one of the websites, a user from Turkey can only see a message that the TİB blocked it due to “administrative measures.”

The censorship was decried by the sites. “The censorship against the free press is an attack against the people’s right to news by a fascist government that has stooped to launching a war and exploding bombs, all with the goal of staying in power. It is not simply a question of obstructing access to a few oppositional news sites; it is an attempt to obstruct access to democracy,” Sendika.Org said in a statement July 25.

“We are not the dregs that work according to the dollar. We take orders from our conscience, not the telephone, ”daily Özgür Gündem said in a statement on July 26, in reference then-PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s interference in news channels’ reports. “We will not abandon our promises, and we will not sell our pens. Don’t even dare trying to frighten us.”