A Turkish court has ordered a blanket ban on YouTube to be lifted, citing another ruling this week that scrapped a similar ban on Twitter.<br /><br />The court in Ankara said the restrictions violated human rights.<br /><br />The prime minister has criticised the earlier ruling on Twitter by the Constitutional Court. <br /><br />Tayyip Recep Erdogan said although he did not respect the decision the government would comply. <br /><br />There was approval for the ruling on the streets of Istanbul.<br /><br />“I think now we are back on the right path. The court’s decision opens the way towards freedom… What happened with the ban cast shame on our democracy,” said one man.<br /><br />“The government created a dangerously authoritarian precedent. It would have sought to resort to such tactics whenever it needed to. In democracies these practices are not handed to governments. They’re against democracy,” added another.<br /><br />Unlike with Twitter, the YouTube ruling came from a lower court. Some restrictions remain: fifteen videos uploaded to the site are still blocked.<br /><br />Euronews correspondent in Istanbul Bora Bayraktar said: “With the removal of the ban on Twitter and YouTube, the tension in the country has cooled down. But it seems that Turkey will debate this matter for a long time.”
