UN calls on Turkey to stop blocking Twitter

GENEVA - Agence France-Presse

The Twitter ban triggered a wave of condemnations both inside and outside Turkey.

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.

"The same rights that people have offline must also be protected online. So we would urge the authorities to rescind the blocking of Twitter," Colville told reporters.

Turkey's telecommunications authority blocked  access to the U.S. social network last week under orders from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan amid a major corruption scandal.

Colville said that the U.N.'s rights office had already sounded the alarm in February over Turkish legislation increasing government controıl over the Internet.

Such measures fly in the face of freedom of expression and right to privacy, Coville said.