Turkey blocks WikiLeaks after document dump

Turkey blocked access to the WikiLeaks website on Wednesday after nearly 300,000 emails from President Recep Tayyip Erdo an’s ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) were put online even as Ankara grapples with the aftermath of a failed military coup.

The emails, dating from 2010 to 6 July this year, were obtained before the attempted coup, but the date of their publication was brought forward “in response to the government’s post-coup purges”, WikiLeaks said in a statment, adding that the source of the emails was not connected to the coup plotters or to a rival political party or state.

The emails, it said, came from the party’s web domain akparti.Org.Tr and mainly related to world affairs and not “the most sensitive internal matters”.

A Turkish official said WikiLeaks was being blocked “due to violation of privacy and publication of illegally obtained data”. Turkey routinely uses Internet shutdowns in response to political events, which critics see as part of a broader attack on the media and freedom of expression.

The coup represented the most serious threat to Mr Erdogan’s 13-year domination of Turk-ey and the President said he came within 15 minutes of being killed or kidnapped by the plotters before escaping. Tens of thousands of people including soldiers, police officers, judges and teachers have since been either detained or sacked in a widening purge.

The putsch left over 300 dead and caused scenes of devastation, especially in Ankara where raids by F-16s and attack helicopters on strategic targets terrified residents and turned parts of parliament and the police headquarters to rubble.

Founded in 2006 and launched a year later by Australian ex-hacker Julian Assange, WikiLeaks came to prominence in 2010 when it released the video of a US helicopter strike in Baghdad that killed two Reuters staff.

Later that year it released tens of thousands of internal US military documents relating to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, detailing cases of abuse, torture and civilian deaths.

It then leaked 250,000 diplomatic cables from US embassies around the world which deeply embarrassed Washington.