Turkish Bloggers Are Furious

The 1st Criminal Court of First Instance of Diyarbakır has banned the well-known blog service blogger.com.

The decision came after Digiturk TV Platform Company filed a compliant about some internet sites broadcasting scenes from soccer games over which the Digituk has the sole right. 

Blogger.com was banned upon complaint by Digiturk

Thousands of internet users are being met by the statement “Access to this web site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2008/2761 of T.R. Diyarbakır 1st Criminal Court of Peace”.

With the same decision the blog provider blogspot.com was banned, too.

In the past year, 1112 sites have been banned

In Turkey where access to a global video sharing site youtube.com has been banned for six months now, blogger.com of Google Corporation may meet the same fate as well.

The measures against websites are being taken under article 8 of Law 5651 on online publications and the fight against cyber-crime, which was adopted on 4 May 2007 and took effect in November 2007.

In Turkey, internet sites are banned if their content is deemed harmful to children, encourage use of drugs, gambling, prostitution, dangerous elements for health, pornography, suicide and contain insults against Atatürk, founder of Turkey.

1112 internet sites, among them YouTube, as well, has been banned in Turkey. 

Among those banned are Dailymotion.com, geocities.com, Prof. Richard Dawkins' richarddawkins.net, turandursun.com, anarsist.com and devrimciler.org.

Wordpress and Google Groups were banned before, but are now open. 

In May 2007, twenty non-governmental organizations that are expert in telecommunications had declared that the Law of 5651, passed on May 4, 2007, had many problems as far as the freedom of expression was concerned,  giving the bureaucracy the authority to censor any internet site without a trial.

In a joint declaration, the Association for the Software Profession (BİYESAM), the Informatics Reporters Association (BMD), the Linux Users Association (LKD), the Informatics Foundation of Turkey (TBV) and the Association for the Informatics Sector (TÜBİDER) had demanded a while ago protection of the freedom of expression against the bureaucratic authority to censor without trial. (EÖ/TB)