President GUL: “I will not allow a witch hunt over Twitter”

On June 2, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had described TWITTER as a “menace,” following the heavy traffic that was witnessed on the micro-blogging site, during the Gezi Park protests. His exact words had been “There is a menace called Twitter. Unmitigated lies are there. The thing that is called social media is a troublemaker in societies today.”

Following this comment/evaluation it was reported in some papers (and on TV channels) witch hunt” had been started over Twitter by the security department. The press reported about 33 people had been detained in İzmir for “inciting riots and conducting propaganda” on the social media network Twitter. They were released based on a prosecutor’s decision on June 5, but one person is still reported to be in custody.

President Abdullah GUL is reported to have commented as “In this process, everyone needs to act responsibly and restrained. I will not allow a witch hunt over Twitter. I will be following the judicial and executive investigation” according to Turkish Bar Association head Metin FEYZIOGLU who met with the head of state over the Gezi Park protests.

Talking about the issue Feyzioğlu also mentioned they had handed images showing police brutality to the president, including images where police targeted protesters with gas canisters.

Feyzioğlu also said “We emphasized the Twitter issue because we found it scary that the communication tool of 21st-century youth would be defined as a menace”.

07.06.2013
SOURCE: MEDIA