Berlin: German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday criticised Turkey`s government for shutting down Twitter, with her spokesman using the social network to send the message.
"In a free society it is up to citizens to decide how to communicate, not the state," tweeted Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert, adding the hashtag for Turkey. Twitter was blocked in Turkey late Thursday, just hours after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had threatened to "wipe out" the micro-blogging service.
Erdogan has come under mounting pressure since audio recordings that spread across Twitter and other social media appeared to put him at the heart of a major corruption scandal. Germany is home to around three million people with Turkish roots.