U.S. urges Ankara to unblock YouTube, too

Tolga Tanış / WASHINGTON

The United States has welcomed the implementation of the Constitutional Court decision ordering to unblock the access to Twitter and urged the Turkish government to open YouTube as well for the Turkish citizens.

“We welcome the decision, and support the freedom of expression in Turkey. We also know that the Turkish government implemented the ruling yesterday to unblock the Twitter,” said U.S. Department of State Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf during the daily press briefing on April 4.

“Also we are following an Ankara court decision for government shutdown access the YouTube. Obviously we continue to urge the government to open also YouTube,” Harf continued.

Turkish authorities had blocked access to Twitter on March 20, just 10 days before the local elections. Hours before the ban, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed to close down the social media platform.

Turkey finally unblocked Twitter on April 3, a full 24 hours after the Constitutional Court ruled that the ban was a violation of free speech, but YouTube has been blocked since March 27.