Turkey PM slams top court for lifting Twitter ban

Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered a stinging broadside on Friday against the country’s highest court for overturning a ban on Twitter, refuelling controversy over his social media crackdown.

As he spoke, a lower court in the capital Ankara defied the government by ruling against another, ongoing social media ban, on the video-sharing site YouTube.

Erdogan’s government was on Thursday forced to unblock the micro-blogging service Twitter, which has been used to spread a torrent of damaging online leaks alleging corruption in the premier’s inner circle.

The prime minister made clear he was unhappy about having to comply with the Constitutional Court, which had found the March 20 ban breached the right to free speech, and the rulings of which can’t be appealed.

‘We are of course bound by the Constitutional Court verdict, but I don’t have to respect it,’ Erdogan defiantly told a press conference. ‘I don’t respect this ruling.’ Erdogan said ‘the Constitutional Court should have rejected’ the application to lift the Twitter block brought by an opposition lawmaker and two academics.

‘All our national, moral values have been put aside,’ he said about the spate of anonymously posted recordings.

‘Insults to a country’s prime minister and ministers are all around.’ 

The Internet crackdown has sparked protests from Turkey’s NATO allies and human rights groups, which have deplored it as curbing the right to free expression -- a notion Erdogan dismissed.