YouTube Ban Finally Lifted

After 2.5 years, the access ban to the global video sharing site YouTube was lifted. The site had been closed because of videos allegedly insulting Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. Those videos were now removed from the YouTube data base and the site was re-opened to access from Turkey subsequently.

A German company bought the copyrights of ten videos, among them the ones on subject, and removed them from the video sharing site. Hence, the access ban was lifted last night (31 October).

The Turkish news channel NTV summarized the proceedings after the videos were removed from the YouTube data base. Kürşat Kayral, Prosecutor of the Ankara Public Chief Prosecution Press Crimes Investigation Office, enquired in writing the Police General Directorate Internet Crimes Office Headquarter about whether the certain four videos that were put forward as the reason for the access ban had been removed.

In the decision sent to Kayral as the reply from the police, it was written that the videos on subject had been removed. The writing informed the prosecutor that the decision for the access ban based on Article 8/9 of the Regulation of Publications on the Internet and Suppression of Crimes Committed by means of Such Publication has been lifted.

The Ankara 1^st Magistrate Criminal Court re-opened YouTube to access from Turkey on 31 October after it had decreed for the ban of the site on 5 May 2008.

The Minister of Transport, Binali Yıldırım, emphasized in several statements made to the press that the access ban to YouTube did not only stem from the videos that had insulted the memory of Atatürk. Yıldırım criticized the website officials because they refused to open up a representation in Turkey and thus evaded Turkish tax laws.

Recently, a temporary access ban was imposed on the vimeo.com video sharing site. The estimated number of banned websites in Turkey amounts to more than 7,000. (EÖ/VK)