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.
Where's the news? I see four links in the summary and none of them points to the news about the sentence.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
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?
The nets biggest online nude anime gallery's
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.
I'm glad I live in an open and free country like the USA where chilling tactics like this aren't used! Imagine if people were punished for merely providing a forum for other people to post information!
Oh wait
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
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
My grandfather was an I.R.A. terrorist who fought in the Irish War of Independence (1919-21). The Catholic Church excommunicated him for his allegianaces too. Oh and he certainly killed plenty of Black and Tans.
Oh, but then the I.R.A. won the war, and he got a medal and a soldier's war pension, and the Catholic Church reinstated him. He never bothered with the Church again or with collecting his pension.
Today's terrorist could be tommorow's war hero. The British government even today would have you think that my grandfather was a terrorist, but the Irish nation is living proof that it isn't always so clear cut. It's terribly important that people decide for themselves who are the terrorists and who are not. Governments that think that they can decide for their citizens are merely tyrants, and tyrants often fall when they become intolerable.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
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...
About a year and a bit ago, Sherman Austin was arrested and ended up doing about a year for providing a link on a website to another website with info on making molotov cocktails.
,years ago, a guy did a long sentence for providing information on how to legally avoid voting (compulsary voting in australia).
When Ashcrofts boys leant on him and threatened him with charges of terrorism, he made a plea bargain that would get him a coupla months jail. The judge ignored the bargain and gave him a year.
Groups like the EFF have basically said if he didnt do the plea bargain , he probably would of been released on grounds of first amendment, but he plead thinking he'd only be in a short stay. Effectively the judge denied him the chance for a real defence against a long sentence.
In australia
And in britain, the servers of journalist group indymedia where siezed without explaination or warning , and now it seems without legal grounds.
Journalists are arrested *daily* around the world for writing articles that offend governments.
Turkey aint the only ones up to this sort of crap.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Unfortunately as a US taxpayer, I have to finance US military aid to Turkey to the tune of billions of dollars. Locking up people who write about the Kurds in Turkey is small potatos, the Turks have been massacring Kurds for years. If anyone remembers, they even invaded Iraq (which the US administration didn't want) just to kill Kurds that were in Iraq. This is the thing that Saddam Hussein was lambasted for - gassing Kurds (although the US sent him helicopters after he did that of course too). Yet the Turks have been doing it, are doing it, and will be doing it. This never appears on the US corporate media of course, just the tragedy that a candidate not on the privatization fast track might win the Ukranian election.
Right now Turkey is extremely sensitive to criticism about human rights violations since they are applying for EU membership. This is quite controversial, so it's easy to find politicians who could have an interest in bringing this case to the forefront. Try to find the representatives involved in foreign affairs.
Disclaimer: I'm a supporter of Turkey's EU membership, but I'm an even greater supporter of free speech.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
Already in place. It's called "mouth-to-mouth", "face to face", "meeting in person". 6 billion users worldwide, very scalable, accessible to anyone who speaks the local lingo, free as in beer and free as in freedom, anonymous if desired (you don't know me, I don't know you, or secretly slip a note in someone's pocket), tamper-proof, available 24/7, works without electric power, earthquake and flood resistant, and can be secured very well against wiretapping.
Drawbacks: moderate efficiency, high latency, low bandwidth, machine-readability stinks. Use when non-machine readable information exchange is desired, or when all else fails.
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.
"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.