Turkey is once again in the news with yet another ban of a famous website. While they banned all of Youtube for videos that made fun of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk they now decided to ban Wordpress.com because of a handful of blogs that supposedly insulted the Turkish creationist Adnan Oktar.
Heise, a respected German computer magazin were the first to report about the ban. The news, which is unfortunately only available in German, does not reveal a source other than that it was reported by the dpa, the German Press Agency.
M&C have more information about the case:
Turkish Internet users attempting to access more than a million Wordpress.com sites are now redirected to a site which says in Turkish and English, ‘Access to this site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/195 of T.C. Fatih 2.Civil Court of First Instance.’Kerim Kalkan, a lawyer for Oktar said that the court first ordered Turk Telecom to block a couple of specific sites but the authors of the sites soon moved the allegedly libelous content to other Wordpress sites.
‘It was when this happened that we applied to the court to order that all websites of Wordpress be blocked,’ Kalkan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
My personal opinion is that this is a typical overreaction showing once again that Turkey is not ready to become a member of the European Union.
Update: Official Wordpress.com information released in blog post. Why we are banned in Turkey
source: Heise (German only)
additional information: Monsters and Critics (English)
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Shrug. They’re muslimes. They tend to do stupid things. And it’s not as if the Internet is of great use to them. Muslimes don’t like little things like TRUTH or easily verifiable FACTS.
The only thing they’d need to see on the Internet is:
AHHLALALALALALALA BOOM!!
Knowing a bit from the first hand experience with the Turkish judicial system and the bureaucracy , I blamed primarily the system in this ostensible minor event turning into a saga. It appears now that there is enough blame to go around including possibly the WP which I held blameless so far.
Perusing through some of the comments on the matter it appears that some of the commenters have an ax to grind with Adnan Oktar (a.k.a. Harun Yahya) . They make his an issue of creationism versus evolutionism, which it should not be. The position Matt seems to be taking is that it is a free exchange of information in the internet , as parti of fundamental right of free speech.
This is certainly a view held by many including myself in principle. However the matter gets a bit thorny when you get into the limits, boundaries of the exercise of such right. That is why we have caseloads before the courts dealing with issues such as slander, defamation, libel, trademarks, copyrights and so on, -some of which are involved in this case. I am not going to attempt to sort out all the legal and moral issues and heir ramifications in this case. All I am trying o do is to invite all concerned to differentiate between personal dislike for a person, or opposition to his views on certain matters and justice.
I understand the predicament Matt and WP finds themselves in. They see the issue as an undemocratic justice system and an individual with strong arming the system to demand immunity from criticism. They are taking a stand on the side of the free speech. I urge them however to go beyond that reflexive behavior and engage in a bit deeper analysis of what Edip Yuksel is doing , and whether he is going over the bounds vis-a-vis the free speech. He has made a name for himself for attacking various religious persons, institutions and values sacred to others. I do not contest his right to be wrong , but I am also cognizant of the fact that WP does render judgement on suitability of the content of the blogs. The method Edip Yuksel is employing , specifically targeting another individual, and inviting others to abuse the blogging system with multiple blogs directed at the same purpose should also be questioned. WP cannot judge the veracity of all accusations in millions of pages of content, however it can place certain limits such as selection of blog names etc, as it does in the terms of service it is offering. Edip Yuksel and others should also be mindful of the fact that they have the right to free speech but exercising it on WP is a privilege.
http://bekirlyildirim.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/wordpres-banned-in-turkey-a-case-of-throwing-the-baby-with-the-bath-water/
http://bekirlyildirim.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/wordpres-banned-in-turkey-a-case-of-throwing-the-baby-with-the-bath-water/