Turkey has taken action to block access to the WikiLeaks website after a cache of around 300,000 government emails was released following last weekend’s attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Reuters reports.
LIVE UPDATES: #TurkeyPurge: Post-coup crackdown
The action was undertaken by Turkey’s internet watchdog after the whistleblower organization released hundreds of thousands of emails from Erdogan’s ruling AK Party.
The Telecommunications Communications Board called the move an “administrative measure,” which is a term commonly used by the organization when blocking access to websites.
WikiLeaks tweeted advice for Turks trying to access the website. It told users that they can use a proxy or “any of our IPs https://141.105.65.113/akp-emails/ (confirm security exception) #Turkey.”
WikiLeaks managed to publish the 294,548 emails on Tuesday, despite its website being subject to a massive cyberattack.
“WikiLeaks has moved forward its publication schedule in response to the [Turkish] government's post-coup purges,” WikiLeaks said in the release.
“We have verified the material and the source, who is not connected, in any way, to the elements behind the attempted coup, or to a rival political party or state,” added the whistleblowing site, which has previously insisted that it is neither pro- nor anti-government, but rather serves "the truth."
All emails which were released were attributed to ‘akparti.org.tr’, the primary domain of the main political force in the country, and cover a period from 2010 up until July 6, 2016, just a week before the failed military coup.