Erstellt am: 28. 3. 2014 - 16:10 Uhr

Reality Check: First Twitter, now YouTube

Turkish PM Erdogan, social networks & elections; Ukraine; Tartars; Freedom of Information; art restitution.

Turkey's Prime Minister has a problem with social media sites. He is no fan of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, since he believes that they are being used to attack him. In fact, his government passed a law in February which effectively tightened access to certain sites on the web, without first seeking a court ruling.

The lastest clash with social media sites began last month, when a recording posted on an anonymous Twitter account appeared to show Mr Erdogan talking to his son about hiding large sums of money. He denounced this recording as fake and since last week Twitter users have been hit with a message saying "protection measures" have been put in place.

Then, it was the turn of YouTube to irk the Turkish Prime Minister as a recording of officials discussing Syria appeared on the site. The audio appeared to be of a conversation about possible mlitary action in Syria from high ranking members of the government.

Sensitivities are running high at the moment in Turkey as the country is bracing itself for local elections, which are widely being seen as a referenfum on Erdogan's term of Office. So, how are all of these clashes being seen from within Turkey and will they do much harm to Erdogan's party? In order to find answers to that, we spoke with Cengis Günay who is an expert on Turkish affairs at the Austrian Institute for International Politics.

Also on today's Reality Check, we spoke about the referendum in Crimea which came under the spotlight of the UN General Assembly. A non-binding United Nations Resolution which was approved last night in the General Assembly, said that this referendum, which led to Russia's annexation is illegal. But not all countries supported it. Joanna Bostock spoke with our Eastern Europe correspondent Cathrin Kahlweit.

Transparency activists in Austria want the government to get rid of the Amtsgeheimnis, which obliges public officials to maintain secrecy. They want instead a Freedom of Information Act. In other words, the constitution should recognise the fundamental right of access to information. This week draft legislation on a freedom of information bill was finalised, but critics are not satisfied. We spoke with Daniel Sokolov, a journalist with the online heise.de magazine.

Representatives of Crimea's Tatar community are meeting this weekend to discuss their future in the wake of Russia's annexation of the peninsula. Refat Chubarov - who's the head of the Crimean Tatars' main assembly - says the community hasn't been consulted and that they're thinking about holding their own referendum on whether to be part of Ukraine or Russia. Gennie Johnson spoke to human rights legal expert Bill Bowring about the Tatar population in Crimea.

The 81 year old reclusive art collector, Cornelius Gurlitt, hit the headlines this week for saying he will return all works in his collection that were looted by the Nazis, to their rightful owners. I asked restitution expert, Verena Pawlowsky, from the University of Vienna just how complicated it will be to return works of art after so many years?

FM4 Reality Check

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