WikiLeaks releases thousands of Turkey gov’t emails

Despite a massive cyberattack on its website, WikiLeaks has published the first batch of almost 300,000 emails from the Turkish ruling AKP party’s internal server and thousands of attached files in response to the Ankara government’s widespread post-coup purges, RT reports.

The Turkish supporters of President Erdogan are believed to have tried to break the Wikileaks site with a huge DoS attack to prevent the information getting out.

“We are unsure of the true origin of the attack”, it added, in a subsequent tweet. “The timing suggests a Turkish state power faction or its allies”.

Turkey has also blocked access to Wikileaks since the emails were released and there was a suspicious DDOS attack against the site after it announced the plan to release such documents.

Wikileaks had also announced earlier that it would be releasing the list of documents.

At least 50,000 people have been rounded up, sacked or suspended from their jobs following last week’s attempted coup.

The Turkish-language material may shed light on conspiracy theories about the conveniently cack-handed coup, which allowed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – who has a long history of corruption and antidemocratic suppression of opposition politicians – to consolidate power. The oldest of correspondence dated 2010 year, the most recent sent on July 6, 2016 – a week prior to an attempt of the coup. The email dump comes hot on the heels of Friday’s failed coup attempt against Erdogan.

Founded by Julian Assange, WikiLeaks publishes leaked material, mostly from governments. Wikileaks claims that its source has no links to the “elements” behind the attempted coup, rival political parties, or the state. The Independent says this is the term it usually uses when it bans access to a website or service.

This echoes a call from WikiLeaks for people in Turkey to bypass the restrictions.