ANKARA
Turkey's telecommunications watchdog (TIB) on Tuesday removed its sixty-seven days long YouTube ban after the Constitutional Court ruled that it violates freedom of speech.
The U.S.-based video-sharing website has been accessible in Turkey since Tuesday afternoon.
Last week on Thursday, Turkey's Constitutional Court ruled that the ongoing block on access to YouTube constitutes rights violations, signaling that access would be restored soon.
The Union of Turkish Bar Associations and deputies from main opposition Republican People’s Party also lodged separate complaints.
Having assessed the appeals, the court decided that the ban constitutes a breach of the freedom of expression.
The authority introduced an "administrative" block on YouTube late March after an illegally wiretapped recording of a top security meeting -- where high-ranking Turkish officials including the foreign minister were discussing threats against a Turkish territory in Syria -- was posted on the video-sharing website.
The block was lifted by a court in Ankara a week later, but the decision was overturned on the grounds that YouTube had not removed links hosting allegedly illegal content.
In early April, Turkey lifted a separate block on micro-blogging site Twitter following a similar order from the Constitutional Court.
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