ANKARA
Turkey's Constitutional Court preferred to protect Twitter over individual rights, the country's Deputy PM Bulent Arinc said on Monday.
Speaking after a Council of Ministers meeting, the Turkish cabinet's first gathering following nationwide local elections on Sunday, Arinc said that the cabinet elaborated mainly on the elections, the graft operations and its impacts on the government and recent events in domestic politics such as the ban on Twitter and the decision of Constitutional Court concerning the restrictions.
“The Constitutional Court, by taking a decision requiring a lifting of the ban on Twitter, in fact nullified the resolutions of the Turkish judiciary,” said Arinc.
The deputy PM added that the Constitutional Court allowed Twitter to avoid living up to the resolutions of Turkish courts while, as a private company, Twitter obeyed judicial decisions of other countries.
Arinc was asked whether the cabinet talked about any legal actions to be taken against the Gulen movement led by U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen.
The deputy PM said that all judicial and administrative inquiries are ongoing concerning the “parallel state”.
“All necessary steps will be taken against all those who abused his bureaucratic position in this respect,” added Arinc.
Arinc was also asked about an interview by U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Francis J. Ricciardone claiming that the Turkish government had unofficially asked the United States for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen; Arinc said the Turkish government had not made a request of this kind to the U.S. government.
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