YouTube.com, the biggest video sharing site on the internet, has been inaccessible to the people living in Turkey for two months due to the verdicts by three different Ankara courts.
The courts shut down the site because of the videos that are insulting to the memory of Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic.
Turkey is not on RSF’s list of the Enemies of Internet
Turkey is not among the countries that are on the list of the Hostile Countries To The Internet kept by the international organization of Reporters Without Borders, which are Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Myanmar, China, North Korea, Egypt, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iran, Uzbekistan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.
Turkey is one of the few countries, like China, Iran and Thailand, that have banned YouTube.
YouTube.com has been inaccessible since May 5
The latest decision to shut down YouTube came from the Ankara 1st Criminal Court of Peace on May 5, which the Ministry of Telecommunication implemented.
The internet site was also shut down once by the Ankara 11th Criminal Court of Peace on April 24 and another time by the Ankara 5th Criminal Court of Peace on April 30th.
The Prosecutor: We will not open it, unless they remove the video from the rest of the world
The Media Prosecutor of the Office of Ankara Public Prosecutor Nadi Türkaslan said that since these images were removed only from the Turkish database, they would open the site when they are removed from the rest of the world as well.
According to the report of Mutlu Yuca from Doğan News Agency, speaking at Bolu workshop, Türkaslan told the following:
“We do not have the right to restrict access to an internet site that makes the propaganda of the terrorist organization [PKK]. There are insults to the Prime Minister, the flag and the Chief of Staff. These videos are still there. But we do not have the right to prevent them. There are videos clearly insulting to the memory of Atatürk. We implement the law. The law has eight catalog sections. People make complaints to the Police or the Chief of Staff and they come to us.”
Lawyer Özgür Eralp from the Information Processing Center of Ankara Bar and Füsun Nebil, the general manager of turk.internet.com, were also present at the Abant meeting that Ankara Bar and turk.internet.com organized to discuss the prohibitions on internet access.
Nebil explained the problems with the Law 5651
According to Yasemin Arpa from NTV, Nebil gave a brief account of the closing down of the internet sites from the past to the present and described the fundamental problems:
“The concept of obscenity is not clear; rather than removing the objectionable content, they shut down the whole site; it is still questionable whether the authorization of the officials responsible for monitoring the internet is limited with the eight categories of crime definition; there are no specialized courts; the internet owners are not informed, they are not given the chance to defend themselves. (EÖ/EZÖ/TB)
