Turkish police have detained 18 people since Monday’s earthquake over “provocative” social media posts that criticised how President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has been dealing with the disaster.
The 7.8-magnitude tremor and its aftershocks killed at least 11,700 people in southeastern Türkiye and parts of Syria.
The disaster has already become the deadliest of Erdogan’s two decades in power – a tumultuous era beset with an attempted coup and violent protests as well as a series of smaller earthquakes and floods.
“WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?”
Turkish social media have been filled with posts by people complaining about a lack of search and rescue efforts in their provinces.
Officials released no immediate statements about the Twitter outage.
But they had issued repeated warnings about spreading misinformation in advance of a crucial May 14 election in which Erdogan will try to extend his two-decade rule.
Türkiye’s opposition leaders and celebrities warned that Twitter’s absence threatened to disrupt rescue efforts and humanitarian relief work.
“Let’s stop this disgrace immediately,” the secular main opposition CHP party’s leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu declared.
“We know everything they are trying to hide.”
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