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Academician Yaman Akdeniz said on March 20 that a Turkish court has approved a right-to-know application regarding bandwidth restrictions imposed by the state-run Information and Communications Technology Agency (BTK) during the February 6 earthquake relief operation. Announced.
According to a report by online news outlet Diken, Akdeniz has submitted a request to BTK to see five administrative documents related to decisions on bandwidth restrictions.
1. Check “Forbidden Daltmas” from the platform to check BTK’s Karsh and see its contents. 👇
— Yaman Akdeniz (@cyberrights) March 20, 2024
“My request was evaded with a standard response,” Akdeniz said.
The law professor then applied to the Administrative Court to cancel the “unlawful response that violated the right to information and freedom.”
BTK argued that it had the right to withhold the documents Akdeniz requested access to because they were “confidential.”
Akdeniz said the requested documents include a presidential decree, two court decisions, and two communications calling for bandwidth restrictions.
“Make no mistake, documents of this kind cannot be confidential. There was also no secrecy order in them,” the professor added.
The court unanimously ruled that BTK’s withholding of information was illegal.
Two days after two strong earthquakes struck southeast Turkey on February 6, major social media platforms Twitter, Tiktok and Ekşisozlük were restricted for 10 hours.
The bandwidth restrictions came after harsh criticism of the government’s response to the earthquake. Twitter, in particular, has become an important communication platform for thousands of people to share the location of loved ones trapped under rubble and direct rescue efforts.
The main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), had similarly filed criminal charges against BTK and other government officials over the incident.
