ANKARA: The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday criticized the country’s highest court for overturning a ban on Twitter, saying he will not respect the verdict although all are bound by it.
“We are of course bound by the Constitutional Court verdict, but I don’t have to respect it,” Erdogan said on Friday, a day after his government lifted the ban on the social media website Twitter.
The government blocked access to Twitter on March 20, after it was used to spread corruption allegations against the Turkish prime minister and his inner circle. However, Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled on Monday that the government’s ban on Twitter “violated Article 26 of the Constitution safeguarding freedom of expression,” and thus must be lifted.
Erdogan said that “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, and, referring to recordings posted on the network, added that “insults to a country’s prime minister and ministers are all around.”
The Turkish prime minister further said “It is not only Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are also commercial companies. It is everyone’s free will whether or not to buy their product. This has nothing to do with freedoms.”
