Twitter is banned in Turkey as of last night.
I can not give any sources since I am at work and all news websites are blocked.
Hello, 3rd world.
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Twitter is banned in Turkey as of last night.
I can not give any sources since I am at work and all news websites are blocked.
Hello, 3rd world.
:daisy:
What's Erdogan's support nowadays?
Abdullah Gul has even gone on record opposing this move. Is this the begining of the end for Erdogan?
Eh, I got the impression that the support for Erdogan stems mostly from the rural population as well as the urban disenfranchised. LEN can fill you in on more about that I think.Quote:
What's Erdogan's support nowadays?
The elections are coming. I wonder if Erdogan gets the boot.
They revealed some tapped phone calls via Twitter, which discredited Erdogan. Hence the blocking of the site. Mind you, I have no idea who "they" are.
Those guys are always so busy, when do they have time to relax and enjoy their ill-gotten gains!Quote:
Originally Posted by Hax
Normally I would say blocking Twitter is not necessarily a bad thing on general principle. But petty censorship isn't really a reason to do so and might backfire.
My dad just sent me this:
Attachment 12533
We heard.Quote:
Originally Posted by LeftEyeNine
If it makes you feel any better, this would probably be top of the news if it weren't for Ukraine and that Jet.
and the Jet doesn't really deserve it.
I would express sympathy but the US cut down some pretty old oak trees back in 1924, so I have to keep my mouth shut
Hmm, I don't quite get it?
WHY was twitter banned?
Censoring freedom of speech. Like how it is banned in China and Iran.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kadagar_AV
So the Turkish government went "We are gonna limit freedom of speach!!"Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiaexz
Even China blames it on protecting the children and stuff...
Beautiful country, great people, nasty undercurrents.
Officially, it is because people use twitter to spread slander and lies, and perform character assassination of innocent Turkish officials. Turkish court ordered some "content" be removed/blocked and since twitter didn't comply, they banned it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kadagar_AV
Ahh, Turkey, our NATO ally against Putin's Dictatorship... Can't wait to see our friends Fisherking, ACIN, PVC and RVG on this one. Remember, freedom of speech, corruption, flawed elections ...
So, the Muslim Democratic Party...
Obviously you miss a lot. I am not pro NATO, Pro EU, or Pro US Government in its current incarnation. I am strongly opposed to the limitation of individual rights and liberties by any government. I think that most foreign policy by most governments comes down to money and who gets it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brenus
My only other comment in this thread has been :daisy:
So, have another :daisy:
Enlightening.
I wish the whole world would ban Twitter.
Turkey sure is taking this Alec Baldwin thing personally
Putin has serious structural problems, problems with minorities, problems separating an educated Urban elite from an uneducated rural mass.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brenus
However, in Turkey's case this is the Prime Minister throwing a hissy fit not even the President agrees with. In fact, he openly mocked the Prime Minister by circumventing the ban!
And not Turkey?
I like the "however"...
Well the thing is Erdogan et al. are modern-er "spin-off" from Necmettin Erbakan's -the pivotal Islamist post-Republic era politician- movement, that's why they were "denounced" by Erbakan long before his death.
The newer movement basically formed around Erdogan, President Abdullah Gül and deputy prime minister Bülent Arınç who were energetic and had a "cause" against secular Kemalism which propelled them even further, however without any real cadre to fill in the breaucratical and technical positions opened up as AKP won the elections as heavily that granting them to be able to found the government by themselves. Therefore, so as to fill such positions of power requiring skills and education, AKP allied with Gulen's "hizmet" movement which is an oddly well-spread (owns "Turk schools" in 150+ countries) and devoted group of well-educated non-West-hater Islamic group led by Fethullah Gülen -a former imam with such a charisma that his words are taken the sole truth by his followers under any circumstances.
However as far as Erdogan's extremely pragmatist world view goes, the marriage came to a silent end in 2012 when judges -considered Gulenists- summoned Hakan Fidan -head of MIT (Turkish secret service) allegedly to have brokered negotiations with PKK in Oslo. The allegations would directly lead to PM himself, so all of a sudden he ordered a bill to be passed which eliminated any possibility of interrogation of MIT employees without the consent of PM.
The cracks of the relationship between the (former) allies became more apparent in the following times. PM is a relentless character so he hit (back) at the Gulenists -known as "Cemaat" here- from their most vulnerable nerve, the private coursehouses (it is a giant business sector since the Turkish education system is based on qualification exams for schools at different grades). He called for the closure of private coursehouses claiming that it was "hurting the education system badly". The reaction was instant and lethal -on 17th of December, four ministers (one of them which was the minister of internal affairs, top responsible for police force) and their sons as well as the director general of Halkbank (state-owned bank) were summoned for trials on allegations of money-laundering, transfer of embargoed Iranian funds, corruption and bribery. The second wave of summonings included Bilal Erdogan, PM's son very deeply involved in various businesses and the front name in the oversized and unaccountable welfare of Erdogan family in recent years. His call-up was prevented via police force (probably ordered to do by himself in person) refusing to comply with the public prosecutor's orders and the huge circulation of police force topping at almost 10.000 policemen followed the "resistance". Because certain policemen and prosecutors were claimed to be under orders/suborned by "parallel state" -a term Erdogan coined for Gulenists integrated into the bureaucratic system.
The harsh measures indeed prevented the trials for some time and after these "measures", 4 ministers quit from the government. Minister of Environment and Urbanizing resigned saying "whatever I did, it was by direct orders and under knowledge of his (PM). He should resign too.". The Gulenist ex- and in-charge-by-then ministers/parliamenters showed themselves one after another, criticizing the management of the party or quitting. PM called them "saltcellars" -a slang used for people who are ineffective by themselves and subordinates.
Consequently, the hitback from the Cemaat was as fierce as it could be -disguised and never openly firing as always though. Lots of legality-disputable technical eavesdropping records that include conversations of PM, his son, former minister of justice, Reza Zarrab (individual claimed to be used in transfer of earnings to Iran), PM's consultants and businessmen were leaked to the internet via certain Twitter accounts such as @haramzadeler, @bascalan etc. The recordings spoke of unparallelled amounts of bribery, clearing of personal funds following December 17 shockwave, pressure and forced self-censorship on certain newspapers and TV channels, illegal/unethical actions against the possibility of trials, vulgarity and even prostitution as a means and so on. Also another Twitter account called as @fuatavni appeared, leaking lots and unbelievable confidential information from PM and his surrounding. This latest account claims 25th of March to be the time for "the peak of the leaks". The leaks called "manipulative" by the government caused PM to rage about internet; he recently told "Twitter or whatever, we will eradicate it" and approved the possibility of banning of Youtube and Facebook following the elections if needed.
So fares the ambience of upcoming local elections to be held on 30th of the month. The tension between the political parties and the society itself is higher than ever. Everyday we watch news of people clashing in the streets either provoking or fighting each other over their political preferences.
There you go, as of yesterday, Turkey made its name into the history by banning Google DNS -a widely used DNS to circumvent the ban. Even VPNs fail from time to time. Banning the internet is not a fantasy for us anymore.
Seems things are getting worse, now Youtube is about to be blocked. Scary stuff...
Ouch!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr
Why don't they go ahead and just ban information?
Erdogan is more and more acting like a mad dog. Total freak.
The local elections held on last Sunday are subject to never-seen-before kind of fraud claims, denunciations and requests of recounting. The municipality of Yalova, after recounting, has already swapped parties - from AKP to CHP. And in the capital city of Ankara, following the re-election of formerly 4-time mayor through a 1 percent of vote count difference, the main opposition party, CHP reported a lot of missing vote records and the records have been collected by almost all non-AKP voters, not only pro CHP people and the directorate general premises of the party was awake 24 hours the day before.
It's such a disturbance that we, as civilians, had to organize in 2 biggest cities as "ballot box witnesses" via NGOs which was not enough to count the elections free of any frauds. We had to find vote records, count the votes ourselves, spot inconsistencies, report them and organize gatherings against any intrusions by police force or ministers. (internal affairs minister visited YSK (high commission of elections) at 3.30 after which the current mayor of Ankara closed the gap against the nominee of CHP and "won" the elections by 1 percent)
Not only that, but also three towns of the city of Şanlıurfa, Ceylanpınar, Birecik and Viranşehir made it to the news because of demonstrations by mainly BDP (pro-Kurdish party) officials and voters against the elections that ended in favor of AKP.
We can hardly trust government institutions anymore which, maybe fortunately, triggered an urge for civil organization and actions -not very common with Turkish people.
It is hard to find anything on what is happening there. At least in English.
I did find a piece on RT: http://rt.com/news/turkey-protest-clashes-election-621/
BBC has nothing.
I wonder why the Army is silent. Did the Ergenekon trial really do that much damage to the army's standing?