Slashdot Mirror
Former Turkish DMOZ Editor Draws 10 Months In Jail
makne writes "H. Ertas, a Turkish editor of the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org) has been sentenced to 10 months in prison after being found guilty of editing a category about the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). Ertas's lawyer, Suna Coskun, explained that his client had worked as a voluntary editor at the Open Directory Project during his studies at the Euphrat-University and had been responsible for the Kurdish category. At the same time he became interested in Kurds and undertook his own research into the subject. As a voluntary editor, he had sorted the directory submissions but could not be responsible for their content. Therefore there could be no penalty under international law, according to Coskun. His activities could in no way be understood as 'support for a terrorist organisation' and thus Ertas' release was appropriate. The court sentenced Ertas to 10 months in prison and a fine of 416 million Turkish lire ($293). The sentence is not eligible for probation." (Read on for more.)
By email, makne writes "I don't know the editor personally, but the editor was first arrested two years ago, then released on parole until now. Members of the editor community
have tried to help him in any way they can, with no apparent success. The editor resigned from the ODP in 2002."
Makne also provided this link to a summary (from the Kurdish point of view) of earlier attempts to stifle Kurdish sites, including a campaign to have DMOZ's then-parent company Netscape remove the Kurdish category from DMOZ.
I believe that organizations like DMOZ should have the ability to quickly react, perhaps in protest, to situations like this one.
For example, rigorous semantic information attached to every DMOZ record would allow the DMOZ community to suspend or flag all information related to the Turkish government, in protest of the current situation. Such a capability could easily be abused or taken too far, which is why it should be reserved only for situations which have direct effect on the organization (and/or its editors, in the case of DMOZ).
With enough open (as in speech) organizations touching enough people in the world, both major and minor misbehavior by governments around the would could be brought to light in this way.
but at least he'll be out (hopefully) in 10 months. Abuses of power are rampant throughout the globe.
This is could be an example of the kind, of political pressure that will make things like say wikipedia less and less of a good thing.
For example the slashdot article in the last months, where there were misinformous facts inserted. How many of these can pile up over time? If a country is suppressing all knowledge of what it really has done, and tying in information on what it wants to be seen as happening then the slow blend from one information into a misinformation can be complete.
And these are self referencing things, too, so, you find wikipedia and dmoz links and maybe some other online encyclopedias all combined together with misinformation.
How will one in the end sort it out?
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what does that have to do with editing public information about PKK? do you really think that's going to do the slightest bit of good?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
That's not the issue though. Nobody is defending the PKK. The question is whether organizing the categories of links on a web directory make someone a criminal. Putting H. Ertas in prison for 10 months for organizing categories of links on a website isn't right and it doesn't help fight terrorism.
And we're thinking of letting Turkey in the EU?
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
The problem is the guy was convicted of editing an article about them. Slashdot is a US website and most of us Americans hold free speech as the most important right in maintaining a democracy. For this case it doesn't matter what this group has done. Simply editing a public website with information about them shouldn't be a crime.
As far as the US acknowleding the PKK as a terrorist organization, that doesn't always mean anything. Our outgoing secretary of education called the nations largest teachers group a "terrorist organization". So you'll understand if I'm a little skeptical of what the US government is saying these days.
AccountKiller
The same TV that's controlled and censored by your government?
If this is what your government does to a web editor, what do you think they do to their journalists?
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
Remember, Freedom can't protect itself.
This sounds like a case for The European Cort of Human Rights. Turkey is very eager to join the EU and recently got promises that they could at least start talks with the EU about membership. This was after the EU recognized that Turkey had done progress with regards to human rights (they have had a very dark past with regards to womens' rights, minorities rights, police torture of dissidents, forbidding kurds to publish media in their own language etc). The EU have said that they have to do more though, there are still incidents of torture in Turkish prisons for instance, and opression of kurds.
With the political preassure on the Turkish government, this guy might actually have a chance if enough people raise hell.
I personally will write letter to the court about this case, and I will also contact Amnesty International in Sweden about this.
I urge other Slashdot readers to take similar action.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
obligatory "I'll get flamed for this" statement aside...
What's with the age-old "they killed women and children" stuff ?
In war and terror, women and children *kill*.
In war and terror, women and children get killed.
If I were an Israeli borderguard and a woman strapped with explosives runs towards me, I would... kill them.
If I were a Sudan military or somesuch and a rebel child points an AK47 at me ready to fire, I would... shoot them in the legs, hopefully, but good chance I'd aim for the chest due to the larger surface area and it'd probably... kill them.
These particular 'women and children' statements are hollow when put into perspective this way, in my opinion.
Now you may not share that point of view, or you may point out that these are "innocent women and children". Perhaps or, in the case of terrorist attacks, likely so. But does that mean the men were not innocent ? Does it mean that the loss of their life is somehow not as disturbing/devastating as that of the women and children ?
Just my thoughts...
Those attacked call them terrorists, those attacking call themselves freedom fighters, I just call them guerillia warriors and leave the morality of their cause for the historians.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
So, I agree. "Terrorist" is a very subjective term.
(Don't get me wrong, I consider them as war heroes, but this was a point my history teacher in HS brought to us, to make us think beyond clear cut facts)
Why don't you try and form a nazi web site in germany and tell me that you are democratic. Go ahead and make sure you deny the holocaust never happened too. Let's see how long that web site stays up and how long it takes to haul your ass to jail.
europeans sure are sanctimonius bastards, I guess your shit don't stink huh?
evil is as evil does
Well, _I'll_ defend the PKK (I'm neither a turk nor a kurd, though). The kurds in turkey are facing gradual annihilation -- some of them have attempted to fight back, without much success (they are heavily outnumbered and don't have much money). What on earth does the rest of the world expect them to do? Just die extra-quietly so that nobody is bothered?
The issue of the war on the Kurds is the most important. Followed by the problem of Turks who don't join in the general hate being persecuted or imprisoned. The issue of holding an editor accountable for the links edited, while worrying, is absolutely insignificant by comparison.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
If jackboot thug out there wants to arrest me for "implicitly supporting" the content of any of these links, feel free to abuse the PATRIOT ACT in order to force slashdot.org to reveal the IP address associated with this post, and in turn my ISP will reveal my name and home address associated with the DHCP lease (because I didn't bother to post through an anonymous proxy(s)). tinfoil_hat_mode off.
--
Power to the Peaceful
No comment on whether they are or not (I haven't a clue), but that means jack. They said that the African National Congress was a terrorist organization.
Clueless, meet the KGB-funded ANC, their "necklace of death", bomber Nelson and Winnie's "football team". ANC, bomber Nelson, Winnie, meet Clueless.
The ANC were terrorists, particularly nasty, ruthless and primitively murderous ones even, there's no question about it. Nowadays they're just incompetent and racist politicians, destroying a country.
I think the grand-parent was not explicitly linking the US with the notion of Civilised; rather pointing out that a pair of Civilised eyes would view the actions of the Turkish government in this case as wrong.
I'm sure that even if the US Government is not Civilised, there are a great deal of Americans that are.
"If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have no need for anonymity."
Slashdot needs to start posting more of these articles from around the world. The less astute among us will still cling to their lack of sensibilities on this subject, but people must start to realize that people really are persecuted for unpopular opinions (Your terrorist is my freedom fighter).
The more pervasive we make anonymity and cryptography everywhere, the easier it will be to protect people that need or deserve to be protected.