海角大神

Turkey blocks access to WikiLeaks after email leak

Hours after the site released nearly 300,000 emails from President Erdo臒an's AKP Party, Turkey's telecom watchdog said the country had blocked the site.

Turkey has blocked access to WikiLeaks, the country鈥檚 telecom watchdog said Wednesday, only hours after the site leaked thousands of emails from the ruling Justice and Development (AKP) Party.

As the country grapples with the fallout from a failed coup attempt, a senior Turkish official the ban had been imposed on WikiLeaks because the emails constituted stolen or illegally obtained information.

Turkey has frequently banned social media in response to political events, a tactic many civil libertarians see as muzzling free speech just when it is needed most.

WikiLeaks said the nearly 300,000 emails from the AKP Party of President Recep Tayyip Erdo臒an but publications was moved up 鈥渋n response to the government鈥檚 post-coup purges.鈥� The emails date from 2010 to July 6th of this year.

鈥淲e have verified the material and the source, who is not connected, in any way, to the elements behind the attempted coup, or to a rival political party or state,鈥� WikiLeaks said on its website.

Nearly 18,500 people 鈥� including many police, army, judiciary, and educators 鈥� have been detained or suspended in the wake of the failed coup, the 海角大神 Science Monitor's Scott Peterson reported聽from Istanbul.

The government鈥檚 crackdown, which also includes a ban on academics going abroad, has particularly focused on alleged ties to Fethullah G眉len, a cleric who lives in exile in Pennsylvania. Mr. G眉len, a onetime ally of Erdo臒an who had a falling out with the president three years ago, has strongly denied responsibility for the coup.

More than 1,400 and what the Turkish government has called the Fethullah Terrorist Organization, or FET脰, according to WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks鈥� release of the emails also comes at a tense time for relations between the United States and Turkey, a NATO member and a potential ally in a fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State to Turkey鈥檚 south in Syria.

One editor of a pro-AKP newspaper charged that the US was 鈥渂ehind the coup鈥� and attempted to kill President Erdo臒an, as the Monitor's Howard LaFranchi reported. As anti-American sentiment has mounted, the US secretary of State said Washington supported pursuing justice against the coup鈥檚 perpetrators, 鈥渂ut we also caution against a reach that goes beyond that.鈥�

WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange, has particularly focused on publishing government materials, sometimes proving to be a thorn in the side of government officials in the process. In 2010, it released a trove of US military and diplomatic cables that was one of the largest information leaks in US history.

The material offered by embassies around the world [and] brutally candid views of foreign leaders,鈥� The New York Times wrote in 2010.

The AKP emails could potentially shed more light on Turkey鈥檚 relationship with the US, particularly a series of lobbying efforts the Turkish government has launched urging a crackdown on US-based followers of G眉len.

Lee Fang, an investigative journalist at the Intercept, tweeted on Tuesday that one email released by WikiLeaks mentions Dennis Hastert, the former House Speaker who was in April. Mr. Hastert, an Illinois Republican, and others at his firm began lobbying for the Turkish government in 2009, .

On Wednesday morning, WikiLeaks that Turkish users who are blocked from the site 鈥渃an use a proxy or any of our IPs鈥� to get access to the documents.