Court moves to block whistleblower Fuat Avni accounts on Twitter, Facebook

ANKARA

An Ankara court has ruled to block the Twitter and Facebook accounts of notorious whistleblower Fuat Avni, who has revealed the details of a number of police and judicial operations before they happened through social media.

A prosecutor in the Gölbaşı district of Ankara appealed to the court to block Fuat Avni’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, after the mysterious Avni disclosed the details of the Jan. 20 detentions of nearly two dozen bureaucrats allegedly involved in illegal wiretapping of top Turkish officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and Chief of General Staff Gen. Necdet Özel.

The court ruled in favor of blocking these accounts and submitted the verdict to the Telecommunication Directorate (TİB) to implement the ruling.

Last year, Fuat Avni, whose real identity remains unknown, stated that several journalists close to the Gülen movement, including Ekrem Dumanlı, the editor-in-chief of daily Zaman, would be detained in a raid on Dec. 12. He also gave details about the dates, locations and names of people targeted in alleged police operations, but later posted more tweets suggesting that the police operations had been cancelled after the raid was revealed.