A group of Turkish hackers have hacked the official Twitter account of Mustafa Varank, who is a top political advisers of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Hackers defaced the Twitter account, posting messages and images in solidarity with the protests in memory of Berkin Elvan, a 15-year-old teenager who died March 11 after being in a coma for 269 days due to a head injury caused by a teargas canister during the Gezi protests in Istanbul.
Hurriyet Daily News reports that hackers changed the background image of Mustafa Varank’s Twitter account to Elvan’s portrait, posting messages which referred to Erdoğan as Elvan’s “murderer.”
- “We know who Elvan’s killer is,” read one of the messages, which also contained a picture of Erdoğan with the inscription “I gave the instructions to the police.”
Varank, one of the most active users of Twitter among Erdoğan’s advisers, recovered his account a few hours later. After regaining his account, Varank tweeted that:
- “After voyeurism, montage and blackmail, they have also started to steal accounts. I think I have succeeded to get my account back. I apologize to my followers.”
Before being hacked, Varank had posted several pictures from the southeastern cities of Bingöl and Bitlis, where Erdoğan held separate rallies.
Protests were staged across Turkey over Elvan’s death during a night reminiscent of the nationwide Gezi protests.
hackread.com, 12 March 2014