Court blocks access to YouTube in Turkey
PARIS: A court in Turkey on Wednesday ordered blockage of all access to YouTube, the popular video-sharing Web site, over a video deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.
The ban followed a week of what the media in Turkey dubbed a "virtual war" of videos between Greeks and Turks on YouTube and came as governments around the world — including France — grappled with the freewheeling content now readily posted on the Internet.
The largest Internet provider in Turkey, Turk Telecom, immediately complied with the ban and cut off access to the site.
"We are not in the position of saying that what YouTube did was an insult, that it was right or wrong," Paul Doany, the chairman of Turk Telecom, told the state-run Anatolia news agency. "A court decision was proposed to us, and we are doing what that court decision says."
Visitors to the site in Turkey on Wednesday afternoon were greeted with the message first in Turkish and then in English: "Access to www.youtube.com site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/384 dated 06.03.2007 of Istanbul First Criminal Peace Court."
YouTube expressed dismay over the move, adding that the offending video had been removed and that the company was working with the government to resolve the situation.
"We are disappointed that YouTube has been blocked in Turkey," the company said in a statement. "While technology can bring great opportunity and access to information globally, it can also present new and unique cultural challenges."
A later court ruling said the service could be restored after YouTube removed the offending material, Anatolia reported, but it was not clear when that would be.
The ban comes as Turkey struggles to prove its human rights credentials to the European Union and as governments around the world grapple with content posted to the Internet by private citizens.
YouTube faced a court-ordered national ban in Brazil for several days in January after footage of a model cavorting in the sea with her lover kept reappearing on the site.
Separately, activists in France this week warned that a recent law against posting video of violent acts would stifle free expression.
The French law, which was intended to criminalize "happy slapping" — acts of violence committed for posting on the Internet — could also criminalize the recording of police brutality, activists said.
"I don't think the French government intended to attack user-generated content, but that is the effect," said Julien Pain, a spokesman for the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders. "If someone films a policeman wrestling someone to the ground, that can be considered a criminal act."
While the French law has provisions to protect professional journalists or those who record violence to turn it over to the authorities, passersby remain liable for fines of as much as €75,000, or nearly $100,000, and five years in prison, Pain said.
"This law removes protection for citizen-journalists or bloggers who would want to record the violence if riots start again in the Paris suburbs," Pain said. "The distinction between professional and amateur journalists is no longer valid since all Internet users are now in a position to create and disseminate information."
The video that prompted the ban in Turkey allegedly said that Ataturk and the Turkish people were homosexuals, according to news reports. Insulting Ataturk is a criminal offense in Turkey. In a front page story, the newspaper Hurriyet said thousands of readers had written to YouTube complaining about the video.
For Turkey, the ban will present a further hurdle as concern grows in Brussels that Ankara is flouting free- speech norms necessary to join the European Union.
In recent weeks, Turkey has pledged to revise a controversial law that makes insulting Turkishness a crime. The law — Article 301 of the Turkish penal code — has resulted in prosecutions against leading Turkish intellectuals, including the author Orhan Pamuk, a Nobel laureate, and Hrant Dink, an Armenian-Turkish journalist murdered in January.
But the government has refused to drop Article 301 altogether, while the law against insulting Ataturk, which has given rise to the YouTube case, is considered even more sacrosanct.
The European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, has been particularly concerned by Article 301, which attracted global criticism last year when Pamuk was put on trial for telling a Swiss newspaper that more than a million Armenians were massacred by Ottoman Turks during World War I.
Krisztina Nagy, spokeswoman for the EU expansion commissioner, Olli Rehn, who is overseeing Turkey's EU accession process, declined to comment, saying the commission was still trying to confirm the facts surrounding the YouTube case.
Flag of Turkey.
A court in Istanbul has issued an order to block all access to YouTube in Turkey, after a series of insults between Greek and Turkish users of the site escalated. The largest internet provider and privatised state company, Türk Telekom, has put the order into effect, while some smaller internet providers still allow access to the site.

Internet users accessing via Turk Telecom get a message in Turkish saying "Access to this site has been denied by court order! ..." and in Turkish and English "Access to www.youtube.com site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/384 dated 06.03.2007 of Istanbul First Criminal Peace Court."

The row between Turkish and Greek YouTube users started when Greek videos claimed that Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish state, and the Turkish people, were homosexual. There were also profanities on the Turkish flag. A Turkish user responded saying that Greece was the birth place of homosexuality. The dispute received a lot of attention in the Turkish media, which they labelled a "virtual war".

YouTube agreed to take down the offending videos, but nonetheless the prosecutor in Istanbul got a court order, based on charges of insulting Atatürk, which is illegal in Turkey. YouTube responded that it had taken down the videos and was cooperating with the government, adding that "While technology can bring great opportunity and access to information globally, it can also present new and unique cultural challenges."

Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which makes insulting Turkishness a crime in Turkey, received a lot of attention because it resulted in the prosecution of intellectuals like Literature Nobel Prize Winner Orhan Pamuk and murdered journalist Hrant Dink.

The European Commission has shown concern over the law article, and Turkey has pledged to revise it. Turkey wants to join the European Union but the negotiations have not been without obstacles so far, for example in the field of freedom of expression.