{"id":232805,"date":"2016-07-20T16:36:05","date_gmt":"2016-07-20T16:36:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=232805"},"modified":"2016-07-20T16:36:05","modified_gmt":"2016-07-20T16:36:05","slug":"turkey-blocks-access-to-wikileaks-after-release-of-secret-government-emails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/07\/turkey-blocks-access-to-wikileaks-after-release-of-secret-government-emails\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey blocks access to WikiLeaks after release of 300,000 secret gov’t emails"},"content":{"rendered":"
Turkey has blocked access to WikiLeaks in the country after the whistleblowing organisation released nearly 300,000 secret emails\u00a0from the incumbent Justice & Development Party (AKP).<\/p>\n
The Telecommunications Communications Board, Turkey’s Internet watchdog, said it had taken an “administrative measure”\u00a0against the website \u2013 a term it commonly uses when blocking access to sites.<\/p>\n
As many as 294,548 emails regarding Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s AKP Party were published in response to the Ankara government\u2019s widespread post-coup purges, despite an orchestrated cyberattack on the WikiLeaks website.<\/p>\n
The most recent email in the trove released by the whistleblowing organisation on Tuesday was sent on July 6, 2016, a week before the coup, backdating to 2010.<\/p>\n
It said in the release: “It should be noted that emails associated with the domain are mostly used for dealing with the world, as opposed to the most sensitive internal matters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWikiLeaks has moved forward its publication schedule in response to the government’s post-coup purges.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Insisting it is neither pro- nor anti-government, WikiLeaks said its goal was to serve “the truth”.<\/p>\n
WikiLeaks said the release of\u00a0300,000 emails,\u00a0with several thousand attached files, is just the first in the series and encompasses 762 mailboxes from “A”\u00a0to “I”.<\/p>\n
One of the emails reportedly contains a database of the phone numbers of AKP deputies.<\/p>\n
A few hours after the release, WikiLeaks tweeted a screenshot showing the database to be blocked in Turkey, claiming that Ankara “ordered [the release] to be blocked nationwide”.<\/p>\n