Access to Wikipedia blocked inside Turkey, no reason cited yet

Internet users were unable to access the online encyclopedia Wikipedia in Turkey as of Saturday morning, with no official statement on why the ban had been imposed, Daily Sabah reports.

A monitoring group which tracks access to websites in the country, confirmed the users are unable to access any pages of Wikipedia without using a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

The internet watchdog Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) confirmed the ban in a statement but gave no details. "After technical analysis and legal consideration based on the Law Nr. 5651, an administrative measure has been taken for this website wikipedia.org," it said.

When attempting to access the webpage using Turkish internet providers, users received a notice the site could not be reached and a "connection timed out" error. According to the Turkish broadcaster NTV, the access was blocked after the website refused to delete false content about Turkey's ties with terror groups.

The site has been blocked under a provisional administrative order without a court order but monitoring group says an order is expected in the coming days. The ban appeared to be in effect for all languages.