Twitter wins key case against Turkish government
Twitter has won a court case against the Turkish government's decision to block access to the social media platform in Turkey, CNNTürk television has reported.
Twitter has won a court case against the Turkish government's decision to block access to the social media platform in Turkey, CNNTürk television has reported.
More than 52 million Turks are expected to go to the ballot box on March 30. They will elect mayors and other local administrators, who will be in office for the next five years. In other words, this is not a general election that will change the structure of parliament and the government. That election is scheduled for July 2015. Yet, many see these local elections as extremely significant, because it has taken the form of an implicit referendum on the popularity of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Four important political forces will compete with each other from the outset:
Turks will head to the polls on March 30 to elect their local governments. It will be the first time they vote since the Gezi Park protests of last year and the graft probe that surfaced more than four months ago, zooming in on the government’s wrongdoing.
“Turkey will lose, if politics are not normalized right after the elections,” Parliamentary SpeakerCemil Çiçek told the Hürriyet Daily News on March 26.
The Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP), sister party of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) which is focused on the Kurdish issue, has denied allegations that they are in a bargain with the ruling Justice and Democracy Party (AKP) over voter support for some 10,000 job positions in the Istanbul municipality.
Sırrı Süreyya Önder, a member of Parliament and HDP mayoral candidate for the Istanbul municipality told Hürriyet Daily News there was no bargaining over anything with the AKP in Istanbul.
Despite the buzz created by his high-pitched voice, Prime MinisterRecep Tayyip Erdoğan took the stage again during a rally in the southeastern province of Diyarbakırfor another electoral address March 27.
An Ankara administrative court has issued a stay of execution on an executive decision adopted by Turkey’s telecommunication’s authority (TİB) to block access to Twitter, as the ban entered its sixth day on March 26.
The government had blocked access to the social media network late March 21, hours after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğanvowed “to wipe out Twitter,” sparking global outcry.
With just days to go before crucial local elections in Turkey, concerns about the credibility of ballots are being raised from varying parts of the political spectrum.
The ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) Ayşenur İslam and opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli have been the latest figures to raise questions on the issue.
İslam, Turkey’s Family and Social Policy Minister, claimed that the way her party could be beaten on March 30 was “through cheating.”
Mustafa Şahin, running as a mayoral candidate in Adana from the ultra-nationalist Great Union Party (BBP), and Yasin Türkoğlu, an independent candidate running for the same post, announced on March 24 that they had withdrawn in order to lend support to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
The United Nations on March 25 called on Turkey to stop blocking Twitter, saying Ankara could be breaching its international rights obligations by banning the social networking site.
"We are concerned that the blocking of access to Twitter on the 20th of March by the telecommunications agency may be incompatible with Turkey's international human rights obligations," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.
Civil initiative organizations, including Sandık Başındayız (We Are At The Polls) and Oy ve Ötesi (Vote and Beyond) have trained 22,000 people so far to help monitor the elections and make sure no wrongdoing occurs.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has escalated his salvo against the “double standards” of Twitter, while also defiantly warning Facebook and YouTube to “obey Turkish laws.”
For the Free Cause Party (Hüda-Par), founded in December 2012 by members of a defunct association with reported links to Turkey’s outlawed Islamist Hizbullah organization, the upcoming March 30 local elections are the first ever elections in which it will run.
Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen has criticized the Turkish government for a police crackdown on protesters during last year’s Gezi Park demonstrations in which a number of people were killed.
Just days before Nevruz, the spring festival with particular political importance for Kurds, Turkey’s president has warned both the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party(PKK) and the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) against moves that could cast a shadow over an ongoing peace process.
Over the past two years, Western media have been awash with criticism that Turkey is growing authoritarian, with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) neglecting democratization and flouting human rights. Such harsh articles have appeared on Al-Monitor, too. On Feb.
Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was in Ankara March 19, doing the rounds with Mansur Yavaş, his party’s mayoral candidate for the Turkish capital.
The Turkish elections to be held in less than two weeks, on March 30, are “local elections” in name only. There is currently such a hardened and ill-tempered political and social polarization in the country that the elections are being attributed the function of a general election — that is, a referendum to decide the fate of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey has not held local elections in such a tense and foul atmosphere since 1946, when the country adopted a multiparty system.
Parliament will convene in an extraordinary session this afternoon, as a result of the three opposition parties’ demand to discuss the summary of proceedings on four former Cabinet ministers facing corruption allegations.