ISTANBUL: Turkish authorities on Saturday blocked access to the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, the latest in what critics say is a crackdown on free speech. A block on all language editions of the Wikipedia website was detected at 8am local time on Saturday, the monitoring group Turkey Blocks said on its website. Monitoring groups have accused Turkey of blocking access to social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook, particularly in the aftermath of militant attacks. The government has in the past denied that it blocks the internet, blaming outages on spikes in usage after major events. Turkey last year jailed 81 journalists, making it the world's top jailer of journalists, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Source: Bangkok Post April 29, 2017 10:07 UTC