Internet Censorship in Turkey

A Turkish court has again blocked access to the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube because of clips allegedly insulting the country's founding father.

It was the second time Turkey banned the site because of clips deemed disrespectful to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. It is illegal in Turkey to insult the revered figure, whose portrait still hangs in nearly all government offices nearly 70 years after his death.

Users trying to access the Web site from Turkey were met with notices in English and Turkish saying it was banned under an Ankara court order issued Jan. 17.

It was not clear how long the current ban would last.

Today we got a letter from the head of the number one Turkish atheist site which has been removed by the Turkish government twice. Once under the original domain and again under another domain. Unfortunately, the owner is unable to fight this in court because to do so, he would have to identify himself which, if you're familiar, will end up resulting in his head being chopped off by the peaceful and loving Muslims who work for Allah. If you speak Turkish and you are an atheist please support this site:

Ateizm.org , the most prominent non-profit Turkish web site on atheism and religions was closed for the second time in December 2007, under orders from a Turkish court. Ateizm.org was established in 2000 by three young Turkish atheists who devoted themselves to the enlightenment of Turkish people. Ateizm.org hosts an online discussion board named Ateistforum , one of the busiest forums for the Turkish speaking online community over the Internet.

Many aspects of Ateizm.org are considered to be revolutionary for Turkey. First time in the history of Turkey every conceivable aspect of Islam is being openly, scientifically, honestly and courageously discussed and criticized. Over the years many thousands of articles appeared in the forum, many of which referred to the verses of Koran and Hadits. With the possible exception of Ilhan Arsel and Turan Dursun's studies, Koran had never been criticized in Turkey so much before. In addition to these short communications, numerous satires, short stories, poems, comments and lengthy articles were published. A few years after the inception of Ateizm.org, a separate science forum was established and started to enlighten young Turkish minds.

During its lifetime Ateizm.org was hacked three times and experienced some serious hosting problems. We survived all of them with flying colors and started over wherever we had left. Last year, however, our web site encountered a different and more ominous kind of problem. In June 2007, without warning, our web site was closed to its Turkish audience with a court order based on a legal action taken by a Turkish creationist named "Adnan Oktar" (now widely known by his pen name "Harun Yahya"Eye-wink. Since ateizm.org was hosted in the US, it remained accessible from abroad, but inaccessible to its main audience in Turkey. If we hired a lawyer and challenged the court order, we probably would have won our case. But we do not want to disclose our identities. This is our biggest weakness. According to our lawyer, there is no way to take a legal action in Turkey and remain anonymous at the same time. Many Turkish intellectuals who were against Islam and outspoken about their views on religion were murdered by Islamic fundamentalists in the past. We do not want to risk our lives.

Since we were unable to challenge the court order, we chose to change our domain name to Ateizm1.org and remained in operation. We continued to bitterly criticize a Turkish creationist organization called "Science Research Foundation" ("Bilim Arastirma Vakfi" or "BAV"Eye-wink and its honorary president Harun Yahya. In December 2007 Ateizm.org (then called Ateizm1.org) was closed to Turkish audience for the second time by another court order.

During 2007 Turkish Telecom has been busy blocking access to many other web sites(*), including YouTube, but they had to back off from YouTube ban due to public outrage.

We know that if Turkish media or Turkish Government is criticized in Europe or US, they listen and pay more attention to it. Becoming a full member of the European Union is crucial for Turks, therefore whenever issues related to democracy, freedom of speech, human rights and alike are raised in the West, they are taken seriously, sometimes even addressed by the government, particularly if the issue is something that affects Turkey's image or credibility in the West. Therefore it is vitally important that we find prominent international allies eager to support our cause by publicizing this issue as much as possible. We need a lot of noise!

Some of the web sites blocked by Turkish Telecom in 2007:

mfipb.com
antoloji.com
calinmisgenclik.com
calinmis-genclik.com
sozluk.sourtimes.org
gizliweb.com
19.org
superpoligon.com
adnanoktar.com
cevaplar.wordpress.com
yahyaharun.com
adnanoktar.wordpress.com
bilimvedin.blogspot.com
cevaplar.wordpress.com
kisiselgoruslerim.blogspot.com
ateizm.org

Access to a total of 294 Web sites has been blocked in Turkey since November of last year following the establishment of an Internet bureau within the Department of Telecommunications.

Telecommunications Director Fethi Simsek, in an interview with a correspondent from Anatolia, said 294 Web sites have been permanently shut down for reasons such as obscenity, encouraging people to gamble and for insults directed at Turkey's founder Atatürk and the Turkish nation since last November.

Simsek said most of these Web sites were blocked for violating Article 226 of the Turkish Penal Code on obscenity, Article 227 on prostitution, Article 228 on gambling, Article 13 over the sexual abuse of children and Article 190 on the use of drugs.

Reporters Without Borders is astonished that access to the video-sharing website YouTube has again been blocked again in Turkey since 5 May as a result of court orders issued by Ankara magistrate courts on 24 and 30 April. The grounds for blocking the website were not given in either case.

Reporters Without Borders said. This is the third time in less than two months that YouTube has been blocked in Turkey. The authorities do not need to block an entire website just because of a few videos they consider ‘shocking.'
 Doing this is an abuse, as YouTube is able to stop the distribution of offending videos in any given country.”

Law 5651 on the organisation of online publications and the fight against crime committed by means of such publications, in effect since November 2007, enables a prosecutor to get a website banned within 24 hours if its content is deemed likely to incite suicide, paedophilia, drug use, obscenity, prostitution or offend the memory of Atatrk, the Turkish republic'
s founder.

This law opens the door to too many abuses, Reporters Without Borders said. Its collateral damage has included the blocking of entire sites such as YouTube, Indymedia Istanbul and WordPress. We urge the authorities to amend Law 5621 so that people can express themselves freely on the Internet again. Turkey has a legislative arsenal that places too many restrictions on freedom of expression.

A delegation from the European Parliament urged Turkish officials to make the necessary legal arrangements to enhance freedom of expression and eventually lift the ban on access to YouTube.

Banning YouTube, Google's blogging site, the websites of a teachers' trade union, Richard Dawkins and even a Turkish dictionary stands alongside more than 40 cases against writers and journalists even since the reform of the so-called anti-Turkishness article of the penal code, Richard Howitt, the vice president of the European Parliament's Human Rights Sub-Committee, said in a written statement on Friday.

The British Euro MP called for the ban to be overturned at a meeting with Turkish Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin in Ankara on Thursday, the statement added.

Howitt criticized the ban, saying that around 1,000 websites are blocked in Turkey and this places the country alongside some of the world's worst nations for cyber censorship. As a modern country looking forward to European Union membership, Turkey should be embracing new communications rather than putting itself in the same bracket as some of the world's pariah states, Howitt added in the statement.

Google implemented a technique that would prevent access to videos that clearly violated Turkish law, but only in Turkey.

For a time, her solution seemed to satisfy the Turkish judges, who restored YouTube access. But last June, as part of a campaign against threats to symbols of Turkish secularism, a Turkish prosecutor made a sweeping demand: that Google block access to the offending videos throughout the world, to protect the rights and sensitivities of Turks living outside the country.

Google refused, arguing that one nation's government shouldn't be able to set the limits of speech for Internet users worldwide. Unmoved, the Turkish government today continues to block access to YouTube in Turkey.

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Two months ago, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, stunned the public by admitting that he has joined hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens in doing something that the country’s courts say is forbidden: watch clips on the internet video portal YouTube.

Commenting on an unrelated political issue, Erdogan told reporters that they should get on YouTube. When a reporter remarked that access to YouTube is blocked in Turkey,  Erdogan replied: I get in, you can do so as well.

Access to YouTube in Turkey was blocked in May, following a decision of a court in Ankara that reacted to a clip allegedly insulting Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Comments like the one by Mr Erdogan show that the ban is very unpopular and widely ignored, but observers say the blockage is unlikely to be lifted as long as the law behind it is still on the books.

The law was a mistake and the implementation is flawed, said Ibrahim Sarioglu, general secretary of the All Internet Association, or TID, an internet lobby group that has several leading telecommunications companies among its members.

Sarioglu said the law, officially known as the Law Concerning the Regulation of Internet Broadcasts and the Fight against Crimes Committed via these Broadcasts, which came into effect in late 2007, has put Turkey on the list of countries that practise censorship.

YouTube is not the only popular website that has been a victim of a ban in Turkey: Wordpress, Geocities and the Turkish Google Groups were also hit with temporary bans in the past, triggering fears Turkey’s image abroad may be damaged.

I do not want to see Turkey among those countries in the world that ban YouTube, Abdullah Gul, the president, said in a recent television interview.

Sarioglu said the internet law made it difficult to get rid of bans as courts in Turkey can without a hearing close down access to a website if the website or it content is deemed to cause offence. To get access re-established, the owner of the website or a Turkish citizen who argues that the ban causes him harm can apply to the judiciary. In the case of YouTube, no one has filed a case yet to get access cleared, Sarioglu said. This is Turkey. People are afraid of the state.

The TID has applied to the Danistay, the top administrative court in Turkey, to get the law revoked. The Danistay could also decide to ask the constitutional court to declare the law null and void, Sarioglu said. But the legal battle will take time. It may take two years or even longer for the Danistay to reach a decision in the TID’s case.

The transport minister, Binali Yildirim, whose responsibilities include telecommunications, admitted last month the application of the law was causing trouble. “There are mistakes stemming from the interpretation of the law, Yildirim said, referring to the frequent court decisions to ban websites: Unfortunately, the YouTube matter has reached a point beyond the original aim of the ban.

Erdogan’s comments, however, showed that many Turks have found ways to get around the bans. Following the prime minister’s advice to the reporters on board his plane to India, several Turkish media provided tips on how to beat the YouTube ban. The website is believed to be the 9th most popular in Turkey and the television news channel CNN-Turk estimated last year that about 1.5 million access it every day.

Turkey's Internet Technologies Association, or INETD, has applied to the European Court of Human Rights seeking the annulment of a ban imposed on access to a popular video-sharing site.

Access to YouTube has been banned in Turkey since May 5, 2008, after complaints were made about video clips insulting Mustafa Kemal Atatrk, the founder of modern Turkey.

INETD President Mustafa Akgl said the group's suit was filed in the name of the public and all those who have suffered as a result of the ban. Turkey is literally waging war on the Internet, said Akgl, adding that the ban on YouTube is in violation of the Constitution and various articles of the European Human Rights Convention.

INETD had exhausted the entire domestic appeal process without any result and was thus forced to apply to the European court last week, the group's president said.

The main aspect of the lawsuit is based on Article 10 of the European convention regarding freedom of expression. The association said that while it is possible to filter and block certain video clips on the Web site, a blanket ban on an international sharing platform is a disproportionate curtailment of freedom of expression.

The ban was issued without any trial and, instead of being a short-term ban, has been in force for more than a year now. There was no attempt to seek an explanation either, Akgl said, calling the ban a legal disaster.

Europe's main security and human rights watchdog said Monday Turkey was blocking some 3,700 Internet sites for arbitrary and political reasons and urged legal reforms to show its commitment to freedom of expression.

Milos Haraszti, media freedom monitor for the 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said Turkey's Internet law was failing to preserve free expression in the country and should be reformed or abolished.

In its current form, Law 5651 not only limits freedom of expression, but severely restricts citizens right to access information, Haraszti said in a statement.

He said Turkey, a European Union candidate, was barring access to 3,700 Internet sites, including YouTube, GeoCities and some Google pages, because Ankara's Internet law was too broad and subject to political interests.

The Turkish courts banned YouTube in May 2008, and now a new protest campaign launched by the editorial team of the Milliyet newspaper is drawing attention to how long the country has been prevented from using the website.

The initiative, which was was launched on February 19, is not the first campaign of this type. But it's notable because previous protests came from the blogosphere and, as a result, did not receive international coverage. The current ban is the fourth such action by the Turkish courts since 2007; hopefully, this campaign will draw attention to this policy of censorship.

The editors of Milliyet were inspired to act by a February 16 piece in the Wall Street Journal by David Keyes, a founding member of Cyberdissidents.org. Keyes wrote that there is nothing European, let alone cultural, about prohibiting citizens from viewing YouTube. Turkey's status as the 2010 European 'Capital of Culture' should be suspended until this ban is repealed.

In announcing the protest campaign, Milliyet columnist Mehves, Emin said: Everybody has changed their DNS settings and can access YouTube, just like the Prime Minister does and has said he does. This is why people have become insensitive about this ban. But YouTube is still blocked in Turkey and this affects Turkey's image negatively and this issue needs to be resolved. So as the editorial team of Milliyet Cadde, we agreed to show everyday how many days have passed since the ban.

Turkey has put all Google services on a bad boys internet list leading to partial, blocking, slow access and timeouts.

The latest access restrictions seem related to the government's ongoing attempts to block YouTube. Access to Google's video service was cut off in 2008 after complaints that videos critical of Mustafa Kamal Ataturk — the founder of modern Turkey — were available on the YouTube site. Criticism of Turkey, or any insult to Turkishness, is a criminal offence in that country.

A Google spokesman said in an emailed statement:

We have received reports that some Google applications are unable to be accessed in Turkey. The difficulty in accessing some Google services in Turkey appears to be linked to the ongoing ban on YouTube. We are working to get our services back up as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, a report at a website called The National Turk, which appears to be based at least in part on news stories from the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, says that:

The Telecommunication and communication Ministry (TIB), a government body that can control Internet accessibility in Turkey is attempting to block certain IP's (Internet Protocol Addresses) belonging to Google due to legal reason . Some ADSL company's and Internet services providers have sent their customers E-mail's and letters informing them of inaccessibility or the slow use of certain Google services [sic throughout].

ISPs in the country have reportedly told users that they would suffer accessibility problems to Google's home page in Turkey, websites that use Google Analytics, and use of the Google Toolbar. Another Turkish news site, Hurriyet Daily News, says that the access restrictions could be a result of the government trying to block specific DNS addresses that relate to Google, as part of its ongoing attempts to block YouTube.

According to reports from Turkish news sources, the government is saying that Google is responsible for the range of IP addresses that are being blocked due to the court order regarding YouTube, and therefore it is up to the company to correct the problem.

Update: Academics to Appeal Against Turkish Google Ban

11th June 2010. Based on article from bianet.org

Media Freedom Activists Bring Lawsuit against Google Ban

Yaman Akdeniz from Bilgi University and Kerem Altiparmak from Ankara University will appeal to tban on certain Google services imposed by the Telecommunication Communication Presidency.

The Ankara 1st Magistrate Criminal Court had banned access to the global social networking site YouTube.com, the video service owned by Google, with a decision from 4 May 2008. In order to increase the effect of this decision, certain services of Google which are activated under the same IP numbers are blocked now as well.

Yaman Akdeniz told bianet that he was not sure whether this problem could be overcome. The access to Google Analytics has become very troublesome, Akdeniz said to name just one example. Google Analytics offers web analytics for enterprises to gain insights into website traffic and marketing effectiveness.

Akdeniz emphasized that the actual problem is based on the latest implementations of TI.B to make access to Google services more difficult and even fully block access in certain situations: This application is exaggerated. YouTube has been blocked anyways. New measures to make access even more difficult are harming the other Google services. This is nothing else but censorship. This is an extreme and contradictory application which is unacceptable in a democratic society.

Reporters without Borders (RSF) also condemned the increasing censorship on Google in Turkey: It is time the Turkish authorities demonstrated their commitment to free expression by putting an end to the censorship that affects thousands of websites in Turkey and by overhauling Law 5651 on the Internet, which allows this sort of mass blocking of sites .

Update: Turkish president tweets against Google ban

12th June 2010. Based on article from techdirt.com

Various news publications are reporting that Turkish President Abdullah Gul used Twitter to say that he doesn't agree with the bans and has asked officials to look for ways to get rid of them.

According to Reuters, in a series of Tweets, Gul said:

I know there are lots of complaints about bans on YouTube and Google.

I am definitely against them being closed down. I have ordered responsible institutions for a solution. I asked for a change in regulations on merit.

What's next? Whoever blocked Google will now block Twitter as well?

Update: Appeal Denied

8th July 2010. Based on article from bianet.org

The Ankara 1st Criminal Court of Peace has not accepted an appeal of the Internet Technology Association (I.NETD) against the ban of the video sharing website YouTube in Turkey.

Evaluating the appeal by the Internet Technology Association, the judge Hayri Keskin insisted on rejecting it as long as objectionable violations of the law continue on the site.

Dunja Mijatovic, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media, has urged the Turkish authorities to restore access to YouTube and other services offered by Google, and bring the much-criticized Law No. 5651 - known as the Internet Law - in line with international standards on free expression.

I ask the Turkish authorities to revoke the blocking provisions that prevent citizens from being part of today's global information society. I also ask them to carry out a very much needed reform of Law No. 5651, said Mijatovic.

In a letter sent to Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Mijatovic expressed concern about new blocking provisions imposed earlier this month.

I am alarmed by the decision of the Turkish Telecommunications Communication Presidency to block access to dozens of Internet Protocol addresses related to YouTube and Google services. As a result, since early June several services related to Google - including popular services like Analytics or Translate - have been either unattainable, or access to them has become very slow, she wrote.

My Office has been promoting the urgent reform of Law No. 5651, because it considerably limits freedom of expression and severely restricts citizens' right to access information, she added.

More than 5,000 websites have been blocked in Turkey during the last two years. The recent blocking is a worrisome indicator that instead of allowing free access to the Internet, new ways have emerged that can further restrict the free flow of information in the country.

Over 2,000 protesters marched in Turkey's largest city Istanbul against strict internet censorship in the country.

The protesters were demanding that a law preventing access to over 5,000 internet sites banned in Turkey be repealed.

They chanted slogans for removing the ban on video-sharing website YouTube and against the transportation minister, whose ministry is responsible for website bans, Xinhua reported.

Don't touch the internet, pull away your hand, the protesters shouted.

The protest was organised by the Common Platform Against Internet Censorship, a platform of over 50 organisations.

There was always dissatisfaction with internet censorship, but this was the first time people poured out into the streets, Ozgur Uckan of Bilgi University, one of the organisers of the rally, said.

The 22.5 million Turkish members of Facebook may lose access to the popular social-networking site, Facebook, as a result of a court case filed by an opposition leader.

A government minister who has defended Turkey's bans on YouTube and other popular websites hinted that Facebook could share the same fate.

The latest Internet controversy was sparked when lawyers for Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) filed a criminal complaint over a Facebook group claiming that the opposition leader was a member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Addressing rumors that Facebook might be banned as a result, Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım said that 30 judicial decisions had been issued to ban the site in Turkey.

The minister said Turkey is a state of law and that the government cannot intervene in the decisions made by the judiciary.

Yıldırım has previously made similar comments about the banning of video- sharing portal YouTube, arguing that its parent company, Google, should open an office in Turkey, pay taxes and answer the legal demands regarding its content. YouTube has been banned in the country by several court orders acting on complaints about content insulting the memory of Mustafa Kemal Atatrk, the founder of modern Turkey.

Turkey has lifted its ban on YouTube, two years after it blocked access to the website because of videos deemed insulting to the country's founder.

Transport Minister Binali Yildirim, who is in charge of internet issues, said the government had been in contact with Google, which owns YouTube.

Yildirim said there was no longer any reason to ban the website, because the offending videos had been removed.  I hope that [Google] have also learned from this experience and the same thing will not happen again. YouTube will hopefully carry out its operations in Turkey within the limits of law in the future, he added.

The video clip prompting the ban was reportedly posted by Greek users of the website and dubbed Ataturk and Turks homosexuals.

In a statement, YouTube said that it had received reports that some users in Turkey were once again able to access its content. We want to be clear that a third party, not YouTube, have apparently removed some of the videos that have caused the blocking of YouTube in Turkey using our automated copyright complaint process, it explained. We are investigating whether this action is valid in accordance with our copyright policy, the company added.

Despite the earlier news that Turkey has lifted its ban on YouTube after almost 2.5 years, YouTube reinstated the four videos that were removed by a licensing agency in Germany.

YouTube, in a statement circulated in Turkish  stated that the four videos did not violate its copyright violation policy and therefore they were put back into the system.

I did verify the statement and the four videos are available where they were used to be available. YouTube also announced that it continues to use a local blocking system and therefore Turkish users will not be able to see these videos from Turkey if YouTube remains accessible from Turkey. However, those videos will be available and accessible from outside Turkey.

I remains to be seen how the Turkish authorities will react to this action by YouTube but I strongly suspect that they will issue a new injunction to block access to YouTube.

Turkey has reinstated its block on YouTube – this time because it is showing a naughty clip of an opposition politician in a hotel bedroom with a female party member.

Access to YouTube from Turkey was reinstated at the weekend after clips insulting the country's founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk were removed on copyright grounds. According to Turkish law, it is illegal to insult Ataturk. Google then decided the vids were not infringing anyone's copyright after all, and put them back on the site.

But a court in Ankara ruled that Turkey's telecoms ministry should again block access, Bloomberg reported.

The possible renewal of the ban on the popular website YouTube after just three days brought the Internet law and the struggle against it to the spotlight once more.

YouTube was one of approximately 5,000 sites with denied access. It was banned in 2008 due to four videos denigrating Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey.

While the top officials of Turkey, including President Abdullah Gul, criticize the restrictions on the Internet, civil society's struggle for Internet freedom is increasing. Meanwhile, it is expected that there will be some legal amendments regarding Internet freedom and some new regulations for the Internet media, especially news sites, but there are already some concerns about their scope.

The Internet restrictions in Turkey are a subject criticized by the EU. There are frequent website bans which are disproportionate in scope and duration, according to the latest EU progress report, which was issued at the beginning of this week, Law No. 5651 … limits freedom of expression and restricts citizens' right to access information.

Actually, YouTube is not the only popular site that has been banned. Wordpress.org, from which more than 3.5 million people are blocked, geocities.com, myspace.com and dailyMotion.com are among the sites banned in Turkey.

But as restrictions on Internet pages are increasing, so is the resistance against them. There are many civil society organizations fighting the bans and new regulations. They are also organized in the Joint Platform against Censorship.

The platform and some other civil society organizations planned a public rally against restrictions on the Internet in Istanbul's Taksim Square this summer and demanded the abolishment of Law 5651 and a new law, prepared in accordance with the principles of democracy and participation of the civil society, to replace it.

A new Internet law is on the agenda, but it is not clear if it will be ready before the general elections. It is also expected that there will be a new law, which will regulate the Internet media, especially news sites, Murat Karakaya, the general director of the Prime Ministry Press and Information Office, pointed out.

The declaration of the Joint Platform against Censorship points out that Law No. 5651 was rushed through Parliament just before it was dissolved for the 2007 general elections and that it did not receive broad public support before or after its enactment. This time it should be different and the opinion of the civil society universities and experts, including bar associations, should be consulted regarding the possible new bill.

An obsession with child protection in the UK and throughout the EU is encouraging a cavalier approach to law-making, which less democratic regimes are using to justify much broader repression on any speech seen as extreme or dangerous.

That was the accusation made by academic and online legal expert, Dr Yaman Akdeniz, at last week's Onscenity Conference in London. Dr Akdeniz, now an Associate Professor of Law with Istanbul's Bilgi University, was concerned with what he saw as a domino effect .

He said: The UK and EU are supporting measures that allow for websites to be censored on the basis of purely administrative processes, without need for judicial oversight.

...Read the full article

Around 600 Jordanian journalists demonstrated on Monday in the capital to demand an independent and free media, rejecting government censorship.

No to censorship! Our freedom is protected despite government domination. Security services have tied our hands, they chanted outside the government-owned Al-Rai Arabic-language newspaper.

Artists, MPs and also Information Minister Taher Adwan joined the demonstrators.

A European court has asked Turkish authorities to explain their use of the country's law to ban websites, responding to applications by two complainants who say the bans violate their right to freedom of expression.

Users of different websites are being punished because others infringe legal provisions, said complainant Yaman Akdeniz, a cyber-rights activist and a law professor at Istanbul Bilgi University. He applied to the European Court of Human Rights on April 6, arguing that the Turkish government's ban on the website Myspace.com violated his rights.

The decision to consider the case is a landmark one, Akdeniz said, explaining that it was the first time the court had taken up a complaint related to Internet bans.

The court's final decision will set an important precedent for all Council of Europe member countries, Akdeniz told the Hu rriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

Responding to the applications by Akdeniz and another Turkish complainant, the European court issued a request last month to Turkish authorities, asking them to answer by June 9, three questions of a general nature about the use of Turkish law to ban certain websites. The court asked Turkish authorities for explanations regarding the application of legal provisions to ban websites, Akdeniz told the Daily News.

Fellow complainant Ahmet Yıldırım, a doctoral student at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, applied to the European court Jan. 12, 2010, saying his personal website on Google Sites, which he used to publish his academic work, had been banned by Turkey.

In his speech this week, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that he doesn't understand why foreigners are all talking about the lack of freedom of speech in Turkey.

Justice and Development Party, or AKP, Vice President Hu seyin Celik said Turkey was years ahead in its legislation and many times more free in terms of press freedom than the United States.

...

However, I understand that this vagueness will go on and will spread to the government's Internet regulations. After Aug. 22 we will have a totally different system. The government is so kind and father-like that it wants us to be fully protected from any kind of harm that the Internet can bring about. This is why they have decided to provide Internet services to us filtered from the source. It is too much hassle to ban websites one by one, therefore they will have bundles and lists. According to the current plans there will be four types of bundles available.

These will be called Standart Profile (Standart Profil), Children's Profile (Cocuk Profili), Family Profile (Aile Profili) and Domestic Internet Profile (Yurtici Internet Profili). All of these profiles will be censored to various degrees so that we will be protected just as our profile needs to be, because our government knows best.

Each profile will have two lists assigned; A black one and a white one. In the black list there will be websites that will be banned and in the white one there will be websites that are allowed to be surfed.

The government says that they ban websites at the source so that our children will be fully protected. There will be no room for the human error of parents. Banning websites will be fully automatic. However, the people who will be in charge of these practices and the standardization of establishing these lists are very vague. The government will be able to censor any website at will. You won't even notice it.

I would also kindly like to warn any foreigners against deigning to think that the new system to be introduced on Aug. 22 violates freedoms. And please don't voice your concerns. Our prime minister can get angry at you. In fact, don't even try to understand it because our government is way ahead of you.

A ban on Google's blogging platform, Blogger, is expected to fully go into effect within a few days unless it is successfully challenged in court.

A spat over rights to broadcast Turkish football matches has led a local court to issue a blanket ban on the popular blogging platform Blogger, angering Turkish Internet users with what experts said was a disproportionate response.

The court in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir banned the website in response to a complaint by the satellite television provider Digiturk, which owns the broadcast rights to Turkish Super League games. Matches broadcast on Digiturk's Lig TV channel had been illegally posted by several Blogger users on their blogs.

This is a disproportionate response by the court and undoubtedly has a huge impact on all law-abiding citizens, cyber-rights activist Yaman Akdeniz told the Hu rriyet Daily News & Economic Review, adding that millions of Turkish bloggers and blog readers would be affected by the Diyarbakir court decision.

There are more than 600,000 Turkish bloggers actively using Blogger and some 18 million users from Turkey visited pages hosted by the site last month, Akdeniz said.

If two people plan a criminal activity on the phone, should we ban the use of telephones all over the country? asked Deniz Ergu rel, the secretary-general of the Media Association.

Bloggers and their readers reacted angrily and quickly to the court decision, with nearly 9,000 users of the social-networking website Facebook joining a group called Do not touch my blog in less than two days after the decision was announced. Similar campaigns have also been created on other websites, such as Twitter.

Update: Blogger Blocked

5th March 2011. See article from bbc.co.uk

The row over who can broadcast football matches in Turkey has now led to Google's Blogger site being blocked.

Google confirmed the Blogger ban in a statement and said those with worries about piracy should turn to its easy to use takedown systems rather than seek a wholesale shutdown.

The process for making a copyright claim for content uploaded to Blogger is straightforward and efficient, and we encourage all content owners to use it rather than seek a broad ban on access to the service, said a spokesperson.

Update: Turkish internet users not happy about shameful censorship

6th March 2011. See article from todayszaman.com

In the wake of the court ban, many people have launched protests on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook against the ban imposed on blogspot.com. Thousands of people became members of the Don't Touch My Blog page opened on Facebook.

People are calling for everyone to condemn Internet bans, boycott Digiturk and change DNS settings as well as opposing the current Internet law that makes such bans possible.

A statement released by bloggers at blogumadokunma.tumblr.com said: Digiturk, Google and the Republic of Turkey should be sensitive about the censoring shame from now on, all the anti-censor Internet users should support this movement, and all members of the press should lend their support to freedom of expression.

Tansel Parlak, an activist from the Young Civilians, a nongovernmental organization famous for its use of sarcasm in its protests, said the bans imposed on the Internet in Turkey have gone beyond being tragic-comic and become stupid. It is like cutting all the trees in a forest when you just need a few of them, he said.

Parlak also criticized Digiturk for triggering such a ban and taking a side against bloggers. He said the company's move has prompted many Digiturk subscribers to boycott the company due to the bans imposed on their blogs, which goes against the company's interests in the end. Parlak suggested loopholes in the current legislation that make such bans possible should be eliminated, and legal amendments should immediately be made to prevent further bans on the Internet.

Update: Blogger Restored

18th March 2011. See article from cyberlaw.org.uk

Access to Google's blogging platform Blogger was banned two weeks ago by a local court in Diyarbakir upon a complaint by Digiturk.

New evidence showing that Google had taken action against copyright violators led a prosecutor's office in Southeast Turkey to decide Monday to lift the ban on Blogger.

Cyber-rights activist Yaman Akdeniz said: The prosecutor's office in the Southeast province of Diyarbak?r -- home of the court that issued the ban -- decided to lift the ban after the expert opinion found that the accounts linked to the IP addresses on which Digiturk had filed its complaint had been deactivated by Google.

A request made by the Turkish Telecommunications Directorate, or TIB, to ban a total of 138 words from Turkish Internet domain names has no legal basis and has left companies unsure of what action to take, according to experts.

Providing a list and urging companies to take action to ban sites that contain the words and threatening to punish them if they don't has no legal grounds, Yaman Akdeniz, a cyber-rights activist and a law professor at Istanbul Bilgi University, told the Hu rriyet Daily News. Akdeniz said no authority could decide that an action was illegal just by association.

The TIB cited the Internet ban law number 5651 and related legislation as the legal ground for its request. The law, however, does not authorize firms to take action related to banning websites.

The hosting company is not responsible for controlling the content of the websites it provides domains to or researching/exploring on whether there is any illegal activity or not. They are responsible for removing illegal content when they are informed and there is the technical possibility of doing so, according to Article 5 of the law.

The list of banned words has caused many scratching of heads

The effect of the TIB's request could see the closure of many websites that include a number of words. For example, the website donanimalemi.com (hardwareworld.com) could be banned because the domain name has the word animal in it; likewise, sanaldestekunitesi.com, (virtualsupportunit.com) could be closed down because of the word anal. Websites will also be forbidden from using the number 31 in their domain names because it is slang for male masturbation.

Some banned English words include beat, escort, homemade, hot, nubile, free and teen. Some other English words would also be banned because of their meanings in Turkish: pic, short for picture, is banned because it means bastard in Turkish. The past tense of the verb get is also banned because got means butt in Turkish. Haydar, a very common Alevi name for men, is also banned because it means penis in slang.

Gay , naked, confession, high school student, breath and forbidden are some of the other banned words.

Responding to criticism that ISP website blocking, which is set to be implemented this summer, would turn the internet into a government-controlled structure, a Turkish official claimed that the control will be with users.

Tayfun Acerer, the head of the Prime Ministry's Information Technologies Board, or BTK, claims The new regulations are for the benefit of users

Under a decision on Rules and Procedures of the Safety of Internet Use, approved by the BTK in February, Internet users in Turkey will have to choose one of four Internet packages:

• children: the most restrictive
• family
• domestic: all websites from outside Turkey are blocked
• standard: currently blocked sites will continue to be blocked, but the voluntary blocks will not be applied

The blocking options will be implemented starting Aug. 22.

The news portal Bianet.org has filed a complaint to the Council of State, arguing that existing Turkish legislation gives the BTK no authority to make and enforce such a decision. According to the Washington-based advocacy group Freedom House, Internet censorship is on the rise in Turkey, where around 5,000 websites have been banned since 2001.

If we define the current structure of the Internet as the standard profile, then the changes can be seen as an addition to the current structure, Acerer said. He added that the BTK would decide the cost for subscribing to a particular package, but the actual transfer will be free of charge.

Users can either choose to continue with their current profile, or switch to another package, Acerer said, adding that the standard package will apply by default and that users who want to switch to another package will have to request it.

Republican People's Party, or CHP, deputy leader Emrehan Halici said Thursday that the new regulations are the death warrant of the Internet in Turkey.

Some 400,000 people will gather in several provinces of Turkey to protest the Information and Communication Technologies Authority, or BTK, which previously unveiled a content-filtering plan. The rally in Istanbul will take place on Istiklal Avenue's Galatasaray Square on May 15, bearing the catchphrase Don't touch my Internet.

Thousands of people in Turkey took to the streets yesterday to protest government plans for compulsory internet filtering.

All connections in the country will have to choose between four different levels of interference in their internet access.

There were demonstrations in Istanbul and 40 cities around the country. Thousands of people carried banners marked Yes we ban! and We will not bow to censorship .

The Information Technologies Board is proposing people choose a child profile, family profile, domestic or standard profile for their connection. It is also proposing a ban on certain words from internet addresses.

Update: 50,000 Protestors

17th May 2011. Based on article from nationalturk.com
See also The Declaration of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, May 15th, 2011 from cyberlaw.org.uk

Thousands have gathered in more than 30 cities around Turkey in order to protest a new system of Internet censorship.

Protesters in Taksim Square in Istanbul called the action, which government related regulators claim is intended to protect minors, an assault on personal freedom and liberty and an act of censorship in Turkey.

Protesters organized coordinated demonstrations on social networking sites such as Facebook in dozens of cities around Turkey on Sunday. They carried posters reading Don't touch my Internet! during a march down I.stanbul's I.stiklal Street, which was attended by ten-thousands. Among the slogans people cheered, The Internet is ours and will remain ours! . In addition to street protests, about one million people joined campaigns organised online to protest the new regulation, which is claimed to mark the death of Internet in Turkey. The filtering is considered to be as unlawful and arbitrary .

Turkey has moved to block the URLs of two major file-sharing sites.

The domains of both RapidShare and FileServe are now banned in Turkey following a decision by a court in the capital, Ankara.

Turkish Internet users who try to access either site are presented with a page informing them that they are blocked.

Both sites are accused of providing access to pornography and breaches of Turkey's obscenity laws.

Turkey's internet censor TIB has the authority to block all websites that relate to prostitution, child pornography, gambling, and promoting suicide. Furthermore, the TIB has also blocked access to more than one-million websites in internet cafes, without even any administrative (warnings) procedures.

It was discovered that many blocked websites have not even breached any of the crimes in the scope of the crime catalogue . For instance, a large number of associations, swimwear companies, shipping companies, model agencies, radio stations, automotive companies, websites of designers, and even some online dictionary/translation websites...

The list of banned websites does not end there. A list of websites that have previously been blocked and re-opened includes some of the world's most accessed websites such as Google, BBC News, Dailymotion, Facebook, eBay, Amazon, FHM, Superonline , Human Rights Association, Bilyoner gaming website etc.

Dr. Yaman Akdeniz said:

In expressing his views on the filtering in internet cafes, Akdeniz explains that TIB has the authority to bar any given website within the scope of the law (for instance displaying child-pornography and/or obscenity etc) without needing a court order; however, he identifies that TIB is abusing such authority. To filter many websites without them having broken the law is beyond the scope of Law 5651 and the TIB's authority. As such, it can only be recognised as arbitrary administrative measures and censorship .

Meanwhile

See article from hurriyetdailynews.com

Marietje Schaake, a member of the European Parliament from the Liberal group, submitted questions to the European Commission regarding the proposed legal imposition of an online filtering system and structural domain-name blocking in Turkey.

In her question paper, Schaake asked the commission what concrete actions it would take regarding the Turkish government to address its concerns about the proposed censorship of the Internet ... and the overall increasing deterioration in freedom of the press in Turkey.

Saying that an uncensored, free Internet is essential for a free and open society, Schaake said she posed her questions to the commission because she believe[s] the latest censorship [in Turkey] may well be in conflict with the Copenhagen criteria for EU accession.

The proposed online filtering system violates the people's right to information, restricts freedom of expression and is a threat for democracy, Schaake said.

Turkey's repressive Internet blocking plan, which has drawn criticisms from rights groups, the European Union and web users in Turkey, will come into force Monday.

Based on the Rules and Procedures for the Safety of Internet Use regulation approved by the Prime Ministry's Information and Communication Technologies Authority, or BTK, in February, Internet users in Turkey will be given the option of signing up for one of two Internet packages: family or children. The list of websites filtered by each package will be decided by the BTK, but will not be made public.

According to the BTK, those who decide against using a filter will be able to continue accessing the Internet normally. However, the new plan also a very nasty sting in its tail. Accessing the BTK's banned sites, according to the plan, will be considered a criminal offense, and service providers will be responsible for reporting people who attempt to access the banned sites. Otherwise, they themselves will be charged with heavy financial penalties.

BTK Chairman Tayfun Acarer claimed the new plan will be launched to protect the youth and children from accessing dangerous and obscene content on the Internet.

A commission of 11 people, determined by the Family and Social Policies Ministry, will determine the block lists. However, no criteria have been defined by the BTK as to how the blacklist will be determined. The commission doesn't include any legal experts or news media or communication experts, NTVMSNBC technology editor Noyan Ayan told the Hu rriyet Daily News. Plus we still do not know who determines how and what sites will be banned. Experts say that Turkey's new Internet cyber censorship system is similar to the one used in China.

Turkey's controversial opt in/out website blocking system was developed within the Draft Bill on Principles and Procedures for the Safe Use of the Internet as published by the Council of Information Technologies and Telecommunication (BTK) on 22 February 2011.

Assistant Prof Kerem Altiparmak, member of staff at the Ankara University Faculty of Political Sciences, explained in a statement:

Bianet filed a case with the Council of State requesting to halt the execution of the Draft on Principles and Procedures for the Safe Use of the Internet that was going to be enforced on 22 August.

Very probably, the BTK contacted the Council of State as a result of the trial. Then, the BTK made a few amendments in the draft and postponed the application to 22 November.

The Council of State did not dismiss bianet's request to stall the application because it was considered unjust but because the regulations the request was based on have been changed. In administrative procedures, a trial is being opened once. As the result of the case filed by bianet and the reactions of the public, the administration understood that the regulations were contrary to the law and amended them.

The lawyer pointed to the changes in the regulation: The obligation to choose one of the four [filter] profiles has been removed. Furthermore, it was decided that a delegation of ten experts defines the contents of the internet packages. In the previous regulation the BTK could act the way they wanted.

Altinparmak announced to file another case against the amended regulation that is going to be enforced on 22 November. He also said that they were going to claim the cost of the previous trial from the administration.

If this trial should be rejected as well, they will apply to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the lawyer indicated.

To summarise:

• The original August 22nd 2011 implementation did not go ahead after legal challenge by ISP Bianet
• The government watered down the website blocking proposals a bit and delayed the implementation until 22nd November 2011
• Bianet are still not happy and will launch another legal case ahead of the 22nd November implementation date

A new internet censorship regime was originally planned to be introduced three months ago, but was postponed until November 22 for technical reasons, according to the government.

In the meantime, tens of thousands of Turks have held protests across the country under the motto Hands off my Internet! Media outlets and Internet forums have also sharply criticized the plan.

Turkish officials have claimed that the website blocking is voluntary, but organisations that have researched into the implementation say that this is not the case. The government also claims that the censorship would protect children and youth from objectionable content on the Internet. In addition, separatist propaganda by groups such as the PKK Kurdish rebel organization is also to be banned.

An 11-member government commission came up with the list of more than 130 search terms deemed harmful. Internet freedom advocates criticized the group's composition, as it was composed exclusively of officials from the ministries of information and family, and did not include any independent experts. Among the banned search words are the English terms porno, sex, adult, fetish, escort, mature and gay, as well as the Turkish words for naked, hot, sister-in-law, mother-in-law, stepmother and incest. Curiously enough, the German word Verbot (ban) is also forbidden.

According to findings from the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders, access to more than 7,000 Web portals could be either completely blocked or heavily limited. Tthis could also include several online services provided by Google, Myspace and the video service Vimeo.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe called the blocking another dimension of censorship, and said it would limit the individual rights to freedom of information.

The Alternative Information Technologies Association has filed a petition with Turkey's highest administrative court to cancel the blocking legislation, saying the measure is not voluntary, as claimed.

Joe McNamee, of European Digital Rights, an advocacy group based in Brussels also interprets the blocking as being mandatory, he says calling Web blocking voluntary is far easier politically.

Yaman Akdeniz, a Turkish human rights expert and professor at Bilgi University in Istanbul, said the blocking was a cornerstone for further censorship of the Internet.

Deutsche Welle report that there is doubt that the blocking will actually come into effect as on November 22.

An Internet content filtering system that Turkey's Information Technologies and Communications Authority (BTK) introduced on 22 November is proving controversial.

Although use of the filtering system is optional, it is misleading. It is supposed to protect Internet users, especially minors from objectionable content by censoring certain keywords. But tests of the new system have established that access to websites is being blocked arbitrarily.

The BTK wants us to believe that, by giving Internet users a choice, it is not practicing censorship, Reporters Without Borders said:

Claiming that use of this filtering system makes an Internet connection secure is disgraceful. Some websites may be inaccessible but that does not make the Internet connection any safer.

The proposed solution is not fit for purpose and threatens online free expression, as the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled a week ago, above all because of the risk of overblocking. If only porn is supposed to be blocked, why are terms related to Kurdish separatist movements, for example, on the list of censored keywords?

We condemn a policy of backdoor censorship. The BTK must abandon this system, which is reinforcing Internet censorship in Turkey.

Anyone can sign up for the filtering system, which comes in a family version and a child version. So far only 22,000 of the country's 11.5 million Internet users have signed up.

The filtering criteria are defined by a commission consisting of 11 members. As most of them are government officials, the commission's independence and impartiality are questionable. It has so far drawn up a list of 130 harmful keywords in Turkish, English and German. The list includes pornography, sex, and Verbot (the German word for ban ). It also includes such words as mother-in-law, incest and even gay.

This eclectic and often discriminatory list will extend the censorship to ordinary news websites and prevention campaign sites, while encouraging homophobia. Keywords related to separatist political groups such as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) are also filtered, which clearly shows that the BTK is not just targeting online porn.

Yaman Akdeniz, deputy head of the law faculty at Istanbul's Bilgi University and founder of Cyber-Rights, said that the child version blocks access to Facebook and the online video-sharing website YouTube. Facebook cannot be accessed with the family version either, unless the user specifically requests access. Akdeniz said blocking a five-year-old child's access to YouTube is understandable, but denying access for adolescents over 14 is exaggerated.

Evolution, apparently, ranks alongside pornography and terrorism as topics that the Turkish government's controversial new Internet filtering scheme keeps out of the hands of children.

Internet users in Turkey were surprised yesterday to find that several educational Web sites about evolution were inaccessible. After Hurriyet Daily News reported the censorship, the government reversed the block. But science advocates and Internet freedom activists say it's a worrying sign of the government's attitude toward evolution.

Turkey's filtering program, which was launched at the end of November, has drawn broad criticism because it filters sites about political opposition to the government and blocks sites that go against conveniently undefined Turkish values .

Internet users have the option to select either a family, or child, or standard level of censorship. The Turkish Information Technologies and Communication Authority sets the content of each of these options.

Aykut Kence, a biologist at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, told ScienceInsider in an e-mail that antievolution Web sites developed by Harun Yahya remained accessible without any restriction. Yahya is the pen name of Adnan Oktar, a religious activist who writes creationist textbooks for children and sends them to schools across Europe.

In the case of  Yildrim v Turkey  the European Court of Human Rights decided that a Court order blocking access to "Google Sites" in Turkey was a violation of Article 10.

Yildrim owned and ran a website hosted by the Google Sites service, on which he published his academic work and his opinions on various matters.  On 23 June 2009 the Denizli Criminal Court of First Instance ordered the blocking of an Internet site whose owner had been accused of insulting the memory of Atatürk . The order was issued as a preventive measure in the context of criminal proceedings against the site's owner.

The blocking order was submitted for execution to the Telecommunications Directorate (TiB). Shortly afterwards, the TiB asked the court to extend the scope of the order by blocking access to Google Sites, which hosted not only the site in question but also the applicant's site. The TiB stated that this was the only technical means of blocking the offending site, as its owner was located abroad.

The TiB blocked all access to Google Sites and Yildrim was thus unable to access his own site. All his subsequent attempts to remedy the situation were unsuccessful because of the blocking order issued by the court.

The court decided that \the effects of the measure in question had been arbitrary and the judicial review of the blocking of access had been insufficient to prevent abuses. There had therefore been a violation of Article 10 of the Convention.  The court held that Turkey was to pay the applicant 7,500 euros (EUR) in respect of non pecuniary damage.

The Turkish government has asked Twitter to set up an office inside the country so that it can be better pressurised into identifying users that the government doesn't like.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has previously described Twitter as a scourge . Now, Transport and Communications Minister Binali Yildrim said:

When information is requested, we want to see someone in Turkey who can provide this. There needs to be an interlocutor we can put our grievance to and who can correct an error if there is one.

Twitter declined to respond to the government request on Wednesday, but a person familiar with the company said it had no current plans to open an office in that country.