Turkey Blocks YouTube. Again.

youtube.com

For the second time in a year, a Turkish court ordered, on Tuesday September 18, to block access to YouTube.com over videos deemed insulting to the country's leaders.

The decision followed a complaint by a resident in the eastern city of Sivas that the site hosted videos containing insults against Turkey's founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the army.

It's a tumultuous time for youtube in Turkey. A wave of controversy over an ultra nationalist video, posted on Youtube, praising the assassination of Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, has made its way to the country's most popular newspapers and… to the court. According to Turkish Daily News, Dink’s lawyers said that the video “incites people to commit hate crimes by abusing race and religion and by praising a murderer,” and that they are preparing to file a complaint about it.

On March of this year, the country’s largest telecommunications services provider, Turk Telekom, blocked access to YouTube, for two days, following a court decision deeming that videos appearing on the site were insulting to the father of modern Turkey, Kemal Atatürk, and to the Turkish people.

On August 17, 2007, the Turkish Fatih Second Civil Court of First Instance blocked access to the entire wordpress.com domain after alleged libel of Turkish Islamic-creationist, Adnan Oktar, aka Harun Yahya.

12 comments

  • […] While Turkey is currently engaged in a debate over whether to end the ban on head scarves in universities, the courts maintain an anti-democratic streak: […]

  • dr_00_ogle

    Shoot all u.s. cops in their fucking mouths.

    I’ve been ripped out of my former life now for 4 years by the shitmouth-merican “authorities”…for exact protected speech.

    Also set to reviling enslavements at a 133MHZ judas-asshole-icial “legal arguer” box under
    Satan and his judge-Murphy’s ‘laws’-earless system. It’s exactly the same as
    bombed back to the caves.

    Worse than being sold as a sex slave; at least there you feel anything.

    This actually is happening in shit-merica via their “authorities.”

    Never be fooled; shit-merica is the scum of scums-liars; self-aggrandizing larcenists
    be their pigs, cops, “authorities,” perennial as the seasons in one’s living room and
    temple. They’re Satan; parasites, larcenists. They’re shitmouth, shit-merican.

    Never be fooled by the shit-merican propaganda.

    The sly shit-merican “authorities” have always done A LOT MORE THAN
    JAM SOME FACEBOOK. They have robbed one’s living room, temple, life and
    soul DIRECTLY, rather, for decades. This is the shit-merican FACT for which
    they are seen begging for more Cole bombings, all their fed. bldgs. nuked, more Pentagoon
    plane smashes–till they’re put down for good.

    Timeless are their lies–they will be put down for good.

  • […] vergangenen halben Jahr haben die Regierungen in China, Tunesien, Syrien, Türkei, Burma, Thailand und Marokko den Zugang zu Videoportalen gesperrt. Innerhalb von zwei Monaten, […]

  • […] 過去半年內,中國、突尼西亞、敍利亞、土耳其、緬甸、泰國與摩洛哥政府切斷了影片分享網站的連結,在9月3日到11月2日之間,突尼西亞政府封鎖了二個受歡迎影片分享網站–Dailymotion、Youtube, 使國內網友無法觀賞或上傳影片,目前這二個網站在當地仍無法造訪。中國網友最近可以重新使用Flickr 相片分享網,但在阿拉伯聯合大公國、伊朗境內仍無法連上。Metacafe、Photobucket 在許多中東國家被禁止,例如伊朗和阿聯。 […]

  • I have no problem with Turkey blocking Youtube. Insulting Atatürk is a crime in Turkey. So either Youtube cleans these videos or Youtube will constantly blocked in Turkey.

  • N.K.

    How can anybody be in favour of blocking complete sites like Youtube? I don’t like everything that is shown on TV, in newspapers or on the Internet. But blocking is not a solution. I’m an educator, I use Youtube and blogs for educational purposes. Instead of denying people access to such sites we should educate our children on how to use these sites and more importantly how to think critically.

  • Magnus Alphonce

    They did it again. Since a few days now, the “Access Banned” sign is up again. I love this nation, but this is an immature and weak reaction.

  • agains idiot with a buttom

    once again they did it again (monkey with a buttom)

    seems there are bunch of retards that think just because they ban if from turkey , now nobody will see that video or what ever they banned it for

    mean time the PEOPLE that banned the webside DIDNT inform the website operators about the insulting video, (since it was the most logical action to do)
    instead they pull this crap out of there briliant minds

    i just hope that they wounth ban the www (world wide web) for containing context that they just dont like , or failed to report

    i live in turkey , and to see this kind of poor judgements is tipical daily life here

    i just hope that they wounth ban the www (world wide web) for containing context that they just dont like , or failed to report

  • […] is the third time that Youtube has been banned in Turkey following similar court decisions deeming that videos appearing on the site were insulting to the father of modern Turkey,Kemal […]

  • […] censorship is taking place. Few Turks are searching YouTube for content defaming Ataturk… but when Turkey blocks the whole site to Turkish viewers to block access to those videos, viewers ask why they can’t look at the video of the cute cat […]

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