Turkey’s Court Rules Twitter Ban Illegal

The decision by Turkey’s Telecommunications Board to block the country’s access to Twitter on March 21, just ahead of a crucial election, was illegal, arbitrary, and seriously restricted the right to obtain information, the country’s top court ruled. The decision lifted the ban, though technical issues kept Twitter from being accessible immediately. Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan moved to ban the site after a series of leaks surfaced, and the regulator acted shortly thereafter. Erdogan then won the election March 30 by a wide margin. In the two-week interim, tech-savvy Turks turned to third-party services to access Twitter despite the ban. YouTube remains off-line, however, and legal challenges against the video-sharing site are pending.