Twitter Inc (TWTR) In A New Fight Against Turkey Gov’t

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) is in a new fight against the government of Turkey, a report from The New York Times reveals.

According to the publication, authorities in Turkey are threatening a new ban on Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) in the country except if the service agrees to block the Twitter account of a newspaper which has continued to release documents about an ongoing investigation. GigaOm reports that Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) is ready to fight the Turkish government in this issue.

Central to the issue is a court order handed down by a local court in Adana, Turkey on Thursday which banned the coverage of an investigation on a military police raid on a Turkish Intelligence Agency truck convoy.

The progressive BirGün Halkin Gazetesi (@Birgun_Gazetesi) newspaper, as well as individual Twitter users, has continued publishing documents about the investigation and the Turkish government wants Twitter to shut down the paper’s account saying that it’s a matter of national security.

“Out of the almost 60,000 tweets on the account, Twitter withheld access in Turkey to the small number of tweets that discussed the national security issue referenced in the order. We continue to work diligently to protect the rights of our users and preserve access for millions of Twitter users in Turkey,” Twitter spokesman Nu Wexler is quoted by The New York Times as saying.

According to the New York Times, the opposition parties in Turkey have said that the intelligence agency’s trucks were transporting weapons to be used by extremists battling forces of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, a claim the government of Turkey has denied. They claim the trucks were transporting humanitarian aid.

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), as well as Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s YouTube,  was once blocked in Turkey in March. The social media firm’s service was blocked for what the country’s government said were leaks about a secret military operation in Syria.

Daniel Benton’s Andor Capital Management owned 5.75 million Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) shares by the end of 3Q2014.