Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - A Turkish court has issued a temporary injunction ordering the telecommunications authority to restore access to Twitter, five days after the government organisation blocked the social network, local media report.
The ban came after the popular social media platform was used to post audio recordings implicating the country's prime minister in corruption.
The administrative court in Ankara will inform the telecommunications authority, TIB, which is expected to grant access to Twitter in the coming hours, private NTV television said on Wednesday.
In a separate process, Turkey's highest court, the Constitutional Court, is expected to discuss the Twitter ban later in the day in response to multiple applications by citizens and MPs on the issue. The decision by the Constitutional Court is expected to set a precedent for similar cases on blocking websites.
TIB had blocked access to the US-based social network last week under orders from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after it became a conduit for links to recordings suggesting government corruption..
On Tuesday, the UN had called on Turkey to stop blocking Twitter, saying Ankara could be breaching its international rights obligations by banning the site.
"We are concerned that the blocking of access to Twitter on the 20th of March by the telecommunications agency may be incompatible with Turkey's international human rights obligations," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
"The same rights that people have offline must also be protected online. So we would urge the authorities to rescind the blocking of Twitter," Colville said.
The US also denounced the ban as an "unacceptable" attack on freedom of expression.
*Agencies