Turkish Justice Minister “working on” Demirtas’ ability to use social media

A powerful social media performance by Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtas ahead of a critical elections drew the attention of Turkey’s Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag who said the ministry was working on it and analyzing other examples from the world “to see what they can do.”

The former Co-Chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) recently intensified the usage of his Twitter account from his cell in Edirne prison as a support for his party’s campaign for the presidential election which he called “will determine the fate of Turkey for the next hundred years.”

Answering a question during a chat with journalists, Bozdag said:

“The inmates can not use social media [directly] but they can convey messages through their lawyers or families. We noticed this and we are currently working on it,” he said.

Five years ago, Demirtas said the military police conducted a search in his cell to see how he posted tweets from there, but only saw a kettle “which could not be used to post tweets”

The Kurdish politician was one of six presidential candidates in 2018 and he had conducted an entire campaign from a prison cell.

The incarceration has not stopped Demirtas this time either from staging a campaign, relying mostly on Twitter, via his lawyers who post his messages.