The online user-generated encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, has been blocked by the Turkish government.
News of this blockage was first reported by Turkey Blocks website, at around 1AM Eastern this morning.
Confirmed: All editions of the #Wikipedia online encyclopedia blocked in #Turkey as of 8:00AM local timehttps://t.co/ybFolRmsOs pic.twitter.com/hI9tn4bHe5
— Turkey Blocks (@TurkeyBlocks) April 29, 2017
This website is set up to monitor various online properties which are being blocked by the Turkish government, reported that the specific blockage was approved by the Ankara first criminal court.
Update: Court order for #Wikipedia block approved by Ankara 1st Criminal Court of Peace https://t.co/LFun43BMP7 pic.twitter.com/LHuF5MaPaz
— Turkey Blocks (@TurkeyBlocks) April 29, 2017
With this move, Turkey joins the Chinese government as the only two nations to completely block access to Wikipedia.
Ever since a failed coup attempt last July, the Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan steadily tightened the controls over Turkish media in both online and traditional forms.
The government also cracked down on the dissidents in the country. If we picked up a story from the Associated Press of Canada’s Globe and Mail is reporting in which at least 4,000 civil servants have been expelled from their respective posts as a result of a recent decree from Erdogan government. So far, 47,000 people have been arrested and 100,000 purged for alleged connections to terror organisations.
Tensions in Turkey have been running even higher since a recent referendum on the fate of the Turkish political system. That election saw a small majority of the country grant sweeping new powers to Erdogan, who has been ruling largely by Presidential decree since the July coup, according to reports.
Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia took this to Twitter a few hours ago to post his response on the crackdown of Wikipedia.
The Wikipedia site can be still accessed through the use of a virtual private network and the Turkish government said that should Wikipedia comply with requests from the government to edit content access would be restored.
