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Turkey blocks access to Russia's Sputnik news website

Xinhua, April 15, 2016 Adjust font size:

Turkey's Presidency of Telecommunication and Communication has blocked access to Russia's state news agency website Sputnik, citing "legal consideration" of a law regarding crimes committed through online broadcasts, Daily News reported on Friday.

Law 5651 has been criticized repeatedly by some media in Turkey as limiting citizens' access to information. In March 2014, the same law was used to temporarily block Twitter and YouTube in Turkey.

Sputnik Turkey editor-in-chief Mahir Boztepe announced the blockage on his Twitter account late Thursday, adding that Turkish users were denied entry not only to the agency's Turkish website but also to all its websites in 31 languages.

Margarita Simonyan, Sputnik's top editor, described blocking as "a further act of harsh censorship" in Turkey in a statement, and said the site had been blocked late on April 14, hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin made comments criticizing "some political leaders" in Turkey.

Turkey faced strong criticism from both the European Parliament and the U.S. State Department on April 15, after the former's progress report and the latter's annual human rights report slammed the country for a sharp deterioration in civil rights and liberties.

Relations between Turkey and Russia have been tense since November 24, 2015, when the former downed a warplane of the latter on its border with Syria on the grounds of an airspace violation.

Turkey claims that it warned the Russian aircraft multiple times before shooting it down, while Russia denies any warnings reaching its side.

Following the warplane incident, Putin imposed sanctions on Turkey and trade between the two countries has dived. Endit