Turkey Censors YouTube

FM Reader writes "After a controversial mock-up video reportedly submitted by a Greek member about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, Turkish courts ordered the national ISPs to ban the online video service, YouTube. YouTube hostnames are currently redirected at the DNS level to a page that announces the court order."

Comments

Headache for EU negotiators

[Reverse Gear]

I think this is about the stupidest thing I have heard from Turkey for a long time (not that I hear much from there). Seems the courts and government doesn't agree on if Turkey should work on tying to become part of the European Union.
Things like these are going to be a problem a serious problem in any negotiations, I can hardly think of any way to demonstrate more clearly that freedom of speech is not something that is not practiced in Turkey.

Thinking about it I find it a bit ironic that the country I live in, Denmark (member of the EU) have done exactly the same thing with allofmp3 that Turkey now did to youtube, yet Denmark is probably quite well known for their so called defense of freedom of speech, latest demonstrated by some drawings of Muhammed.
I guess the reasons behind the two court ordered bannings are a bit different.
In Turkey the reasons being nationalistic and religious, while it in Denmark is the music industries (and according to them also the artists) interest and money that is the reason (one could maybe then start arguing that we just have a different kind of "state religion" in Denmark, I will keep out of that discussion).

Anyhow I kind of understand if the Turkish negotiators will think of the EU as talking with two tongues if they start telling them that Turkey can't do this kind of thing if they want to be part of the EU.

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[geoffspear]

If you think that the "right" to purchase copyrighted music from another country without copyright laws is a "free speech" issue, anything else you say probably isn't very credible.

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[AKAImBatman]

I don't think it will carry much weight. Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights reads:

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

Emphasis is obviously mine. Bascially, Turkey could argue that their laws are not restrictive to free speech, and that their laws only "protect the morals [and] reputation" of the citizens of its country. (Both past and present.)

Other EU countries can try to make a stink about it, but I seriously doubt that anyone is going to push Turkey too hard.

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[julesh]

Emphasis is obviously mine. Bascially, Turkey could argue that their laws are not restrictive to free speech, and that their laws only "protect the morals [and] reputation" of the citizens of its country. (Both past and present.)

Protection of morals has been used as a get-out in the past; it is how censorship of pornography and/or "hate speech" is typically justified. I just don't see how it would apply in this case, as (if I read the summary correctly) nothing even approximately moral is involved. The issue is purely political.

I believe the protection of the reputation of others has been interpreted by the court in the past as only applying to those who are still alive, which would rule it out in this case.

Other EU countries can try to make a stink about it, but I seriously doubt that anyone is going to push Turkey too hard.

Of course, anybody can petition the European Court of Human Rights these days. I'm not sure how much profit YouTube will be losing here, but I'd be unsurprised if they weren't at least considering doing so right now.

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupidest thing you've heard from Turkey in a long time? Ever hear of the Armenian Genocide? To this day Turkey has refused to acknowledge it even happened. I'd say refusing to acknowledge a 1.5 million body count, almost 2/3rds of the entire population of Armenia, is pretty stupid. Considering there is enormous amounts of data supporting it, eye witness accounts, paper trails, almost every major government on Earth having an official position stating that it occurred.

To them, it never happened. They should not be allowed to join the EU until they own up their atrocities, nor should they be supported or even considered.

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

I just have one question. How can the EU seriously consider Turkey for membership when it
1) refuses to recognize a member of the EU (Cyprus) and
2) refuses to end its illegal occupation of that same member (the bogus "nation" of Northern Cyprus)?
Does refusal to recognize an existing member somehow not matter? If it was me, I'd tell Turkey in no uncertain terms that until those issues are resolved, talks are meaningless because there can be no membership without resolution of both issues and both issues can only be resolved in a way that Turkey will never agree to. I suppose the EU has nothing better to do than waste everyone's time with this charade.

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[LizardKing]

a country that is about one generation away from rule by Sharia

Have you been to Turkey? Do you know any Turks? I guess not. Last time I went to Turkey, I drank beer in cafes, saw attractive Turkish women walking around unaccompanied and never once felt uncomfortable as a "Westerner". Yup, there are problems in Turkey - the mistreatment of the large Kurdish minority as well as the nationalist posturing of some politicians and newspapers spring to mind - but to say it's almost a Sharia state is a joke.

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[inviolet]

Protection of morals has been used as a get-out in the past; it is how censorship of pornography and/or "hate speech" is typically justified. I just don't see how it would apply in this case, as (if I read the summary correctly) nothing even approximately moral is involved. The issue is purely political.

Few people are wise enough to understand the distinction between moral and political. Observe the common practice of equating right/wrong with legal/illegal. How many Americans understand Oliver North's point, that often it is morally correct to break the law?

Few people get it. And even fewer societies manage to legislate it, in the form of legally protecting immoral behavior. America, the alleged bastion of "separation of church and state", just can't resist the urge to ban anything even vaguely self-destructive. Well, except maybe for Nevada.

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[jabagi]

How nice to hear that the Armenian Genocide really happened!

First of all the events happened 90+ years ago, second Turkey acknowledges that the Armenian population in the East regions were forced to relocate by the Ottoman Empire, third they also acknowledge a lot of deaths occured on both sides, fourth this is the first time I heard the death toll as 1.5 million, fifth there is a lot of evidence disproving that it was a genocide in a legal sense, sixth there are only a handful of governments with an official position (positive AND negative) on the "Armenian Genocide".

PS: I am a Turkish citizen but not Turkish and I criticize the nationalistic bullshit in Turkey a lot, but to hear so much disinformation in an unrelated topic gets on my nerves!

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[LizardKing]

Read the background to the partition of Cyprus. It came about after a coup was launched by the military junta running mainland Greece. The goal of the coup was to assassinate the Cypriot president and replace him with a puppet leader who would declare Cyprus part of Greece. This ran contrary to the agreements signed when Cyprus gained independence and was opposed by most Greek Cypriots as well the Turkish minority. Following the coup, Turkey invaded the Northern part of the Ireland to protect the large ethnic Turkish minority (who had often been treated as second class citizens by the ethnic Greeks since independence). Since then reunification attempts under the auspices of the EU and UN have failed, the Turkish Cypriots are mostly in favour, but the Greek Cypriots elected an strongly anti-reunification president to derail the process.

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[caluml]

A bit about the Armenian genocide here: Turkey and the EU

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[nomadic]

How many Americans understand Oliver North's point, that often it is morally correct to break the law?

I have a pretty strict policy of not going to Oliver North for advice on morality.

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[nietsch]

This argument is always abused when somebody wants to argue that turkey should not be part of the EU. As far as I know, the EU is most of all an economic union, this argument has no economic merit at all. 'They' can not own up their atrocities, as the 'they' that committed them are long dead and buried. Only if you have very oldfashioned morals you can think that a country (or people as turkey is not the ottoman empire) carries this guilt over the generations. Its mostly racism that motivates these 'Turkey not in EU' plebs.

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[geoffspear]

Since at least the copyright act of 1909, but possibly earlier.

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[quag7]

I'm not Armenian or Turkish or Greek; so I have no specific axe to grind at all, except to say that this site, referenced in a previous reply as some sort of "evidence" against the genocide, is pathetic:

http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/

Within 3 paragraphs, it builds the same kind of "they have wealth and power and control information" conspiracy bullshit in the same way anti-Semitic literature does, and then makes this remarkable statement:

"Turks characteristically shun propaganda, and have chosen not to dwell on the tragedies of the past, forging ahead to build upon brotherhood."

That may be true of most Turks, but I have my doubts about the guy publishing this site. Not much brotherhood in that website.

Armenians in the United States, at least, are not a large ethnic group.

"As descendants of the merchant class from the Ottoman Empire, Armenians have been successful in acquiring the wealth and power to make their voices heard... and they have made good use of the "Christian" connection to gain the sympathies of Westerners who share their religion and prejudices."

Is utterly ridiculous. Absurd. Most Americans, I'd wager, have never even heard of the Armenian genocide, or find Armenia (or Turkey for that matter) on a map. I'm not proud of this, but this statement rings like a total fabrication in light of it. As for the other Western nations, I cannot say - I hope they know more about this than I assume most Americans do, but I find it hard to believe that Europeans, for instance, are "just making crap up" to fuck with Turkey.

Either a genocide happened or it did not. Almost to this day, some people expect Germans to continue to apologize for the Holocaust (which is ridiculous and insulting to the generations during and since who have contributed dramatically to the human rights cause and freedom around the world), but the way Germany has dealt with this event in their history (and continues to deal with it) provides an interesting contrast to the way that countries like Turkey (if these comments are representative of the prevalent attitudes in Turkey - I honestly do not know if they are, so I do not mean to impugn all of Turkey) and Cambodia have dealt with theirs.

*Everyone's shit stinks, including Turkey's.* I know, my own country is right now run by monkeys hurling more than their fair of shit - a display of excess so quintessential to the United States. We also have our unfortunate and shameful legacy of slavery and racism and genocide of the American Indians - something pointed at by the stupid website above - and one thing we do not do - most of us, anyway - is deny it. At least, no one I know does. It is part of our legacy, and who we are. We may not have done enough in penance for these sins - I'm the first to admit it - but no one denies that it happened, and that many of our ancestors - relatives - were responsible for it. There is a statue in the center of Santa Fe - a monument, I forget to who - some cowboy - which talks about how he "battled Indian savages". Not only was the word savages ground off of the statue, but a memorial plaque acknowledging our shit treatment of people who owned that land was placed on it as well. A pittance of a gesture, but at least an acknowledgement of it, and anyone who visits the park in the middle of Santa Fe will reflect on what happened where they're standing. The statue is an example of a nation coming to terms - to some degree - with its unsavory past. Acknowledgement alone isn't enough, but it's the first step.

Wikipedia has a map of who recognizes this as genocide, and who does not, hence my comment on Europeans since much of Europe recognizes it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:ArmenianGenocid eRecognition.png

Yes, technically this is off topic, but as an American, I'm getting a little tired of having to take responsibilit

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[nietsch]

Did you know that before Cyprus was to be admitted, it had to reunite with the other half and form one country. So a referendum was held in both parts. The turkish part had a large majority for reunion. The greek part rejected the reunion so both parts were not reunited and as such did not comply with the EU demands. Instead of not admitting Cyprus, they went ahead and admitted the greek part(the part that rejected reunion) anyway. So why again do you want Turkey to recognise that half-nation? Lets not forget that this is a proxy conflict between greece and turkey, both behaving very childish over an island not much bigger than the channel islands. Why it should be an independent nation is beyond me.

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[bogjobber]

Just to clarify, Turkey does acknowledge that the Armenians were killed, they just claim that it was a result of the war and was not intended as genocide. This is just as bad as claiming it didn't even happen, as the evidence overwhelmingly shows it to be an attempted (and largely successful) ethnic cleansing.

Re:Headache for EU negotiators

[dinther]

That must classify as the stupidest thing I have heard all week. I would say all month but we are only 8 days into March.

If a government of a "free" country that advocates free speech and all those things the "Western" world is so proud of, then they have no right to block access to any particular web-site just because it offers the opportunity to do something wrong (Which by the way is still disputed)

Why should people in Denmark not be allowed to browse allofmp3? Why should they not be allowed to listen to sound clips and browse and read the enormous music library there? No, let's block access for the entire population so that they won't be tempted to break the law. Those idiots better ban movies like "The fast and the furious" because people may be tempted to speed when driving home after the movies.

People, I say it again...

We are rapidly breaking down our western model of civilisation. We are giving away and taking away our own freedoms for which our forefathers fought so hard to obtain. Allied forces kicked out Nazis in the second world war so people would to be forced to show an "Ausweis" (passport) at every street corner and now I hear that in the Netherlands's you have to carry a passport on you at all times even when not leaving the country!

Governments, Local councils and other "authorities" continue to dream up new law's and new rules at a neck breaking pace to control the local and national issues. Yet they never remove any rules and now often are hamstrung themselves by their own net of burocracy.

WE ARE CHOKING OUR SELVES!

Super-Secret Uber Hacking Thing-a-ma-whatsit

[AKAImBatman]

Edit your hosts file to point to 208.65.153.253 or 208.65.153.251. Here are the instructions for each OS:

# Unix/Linux/OS X

1. 'su'
2. 'echo "208.65.153.253 www.youtube.com" >> /etc/hosts'

# Windows

1. Start > Run > 'cmd'
2. 'echo 208.65.153.253 www.youtube.com >> c:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts'

You may need to edit your hosts file with a text editor to ensure that it was properly edited. On Windows in particular, there may not be a line break added in. Just open the file, find the "208.", position the cursor in front of the "208." and press enter. Save the file.

There. All done.

As you can see, the Turkish government's solution is incredibly sophiticated and difficult to circumvent. :-/

Here's an actual story on the issue.

The long and short of it is that Turkey found the video "insulting" and hasn't even decided yet if the video is legally "wrong". So much for being a "democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic". (Taken from Wikipedia.)

Re:Super-Secret Uber Hacking Thing-a-ma-whatsit

[WinterSolstice]

Actually on OSX:

sudo bash
echo "208.65.153.253 www.youtube.com" >> /etc/hosts

(can't just su on OSX usually - root has no password)

Re:Super-Secret Uber Hacking Thing-a-ma-whatsit

[Moby Cock]

Anything that "insults" Turkishness is illegal in Turkey. It makes for some very odd behaviour. For example, their most famour novelist was recently tried in the courts because he admitted (while in SwitzerlandO) that he believed that Turkey played a role in the Armenian Genocide. Participation in genocide is construed as insulting Turkishness and thus prosecutable. My friend married a Turkish woman and she is the most nationalistic person I've ever known. She will not tolerate any jokes or snide comments about Turkey.

Re:Super-Secret Uber Hacking Thing-a-ma-whatsit

[inviolet]

Anything that "insults" Turkishness is illegal in Turkey. It makes for some very odd behaviour. For example, their most famour novelist was recently tried in the courts because he admitted (while in SwitzerlandO) that he believed that Turkey played a role in the Armenian Genocide. Participation in genocide is construed as insulting Turkishness and thus prosecutable. My friend married a Turkish woman and she is the most nationalistic person I've ever known. She will not tolerate any jokes or snide comments about Turkey.

How amusing. And how very revealing. Hypersensitivity is always a billboard advertising low self-esteem.

And considering the kinds of ideological torsion they live with, and the power-grabbing inhumanity they show their minorities (armenians, kurds, etc.), it's no wonder they're hypersensitive. To be a Turk is to walk around in a state of perpetual cognitive dissonance.

To my eye, America has the opposite problem: we enjoy the ability to absorb insults, and even to make fun of ourselves, because we are actually a bit overconfident in the quality of our culture and the consistency of our ideology. (Even so, we at least have the colossal distinction of being the first country on Earth to have the power to militarily conquer the world who did not proceed to do so.)

Re:Super-Secret Uber Hacking Thing-a-ma-whatsit

[Moby Cock]

Even so, we at least have the colossal distinction of being the first country on Earth to have the power to militarily conquer the world

So...what happened in Iraq?

Re:Super-Secret Uber Hacking Thing-a-ma-whatsit

[thinklinux2007]

In Switzerland you cannot even deny Armenian Genocide !!!
Last year the president of Turkish Historical Society get arrested in Switzerland while talking in a conference about Armenian Genocide.
IS THIS THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH ?

Check this page out, http://www.ermenisorunu.gen.tr/english/intro/index .html/

How inconvenient

[NinjaTariq]

... That they have to go to http://208.65.153.251/ or edit their hosts file to do it.

From the office of the Minister of Turkish Justice

[MrBulwark]

[Access to this comment has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/384 dated 06.03.2007 of Istanbul First Criminal Peace Court. Move along, there is nothing to see here.]

This is very European of them.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually quite in line with what many nations in the EU would do. I mean, just yesterday we had a story posted to Slashdot about France apparently outlawing the filming of violence. Leading EU member nations like Germany, France and Austria also have rather draconian "hate speech" legislation. Censorship is a European way of life. Most Europeans like to think that they're free to speak their mind, but in reality that's not the case.

Re:This is very European of them.

[Da Fokka]

Don't be ridiculous. Hate speechs laws in (some) EU countries might be harsher than in the US, but these laws are not in the same league as what Turkey is pulling off here. And when critisizing free speech in Europe, you might want to keep in mind cases like The Fishman Affidavit, in which the Dutch supreme court ruled that the right of the public to know about the practises of Scientology superceded the intellectual property of Scientology of their teachings.

Re:This is very European of them.

[giorgiofr]

Nonsense. My friggin constitution states I'll go to jail if I praise the wrong political party. I think this is even worse than what Turkey is doing.

Re:This is very European of them.

[Da Fokka]

I don't know which constitution you are referring but assuming you are European there are two possibilities:
  1. You live in Belarus.
  2. You live in one of those countries where racist parties could be outlawed.

Although I don't believe that outlawing *any* opinion is a good idea, by no means is that worse than Turkey, where someone was convicted to a jail sentence when he referred to terrorist/freedom fighter(*) Ocalan as 'Mr. Ocalan'.

(*) Depends on whom you ask.

Re:This is very European of them.

[Skunkhead]

My friggin constitution states I'll go to jail if I praise the wrong political party. Well, if you refer to praising parties which have their roots in that one party committing the prime example of genocide, then yes, i think you should go to jail. Comparing censorship with the defense mechanisms to ensure that stuff like that never happens is a bit daft, even if these measures result in censorship. Illegalizing denial of the holocaust is different issue than denying access to lonelygirl15s videoblog.

Re:This is very European of them.

[Teun]

As long as his people have no free nation of themselves it will stay an issue.

Just as much as there is still no consensus in the US about the status of the Southern 'Freedom' fighters of the Civil War.

The Issue On Topic is that Present Day Turkey is still so unsure about it's reason of existence that it outlaws even the smallest forms of dissent.
The court's ruling that it is a punishable offence for a politician (Ahmet Türk) to refer to the head of the PKK as 'Mister' is a prime example.
A lot of terrorism would melt away if countries like Turkey could get to grips with the fact that people are different, even within their own borders and give them the respect they deserve like allow them to use their own language.

Re:This is very European of them.

[Da Fokka]

Agreed. As long as Turkey does not respect human rights, as far as I'm concerned they have no place in the European Union.

Re:This is very European of them.

[rifter]

A lot of terorism would melt away if US and other oil and natural gas hungry countries stop wageging wars in Middle East and other resourcefull areas.

Wars have been fought in the Middle East for perhaps 100,000 years. At least within the context of the much smaller time period recorded by history, the wars have been about access and resources. It's been about access to land, spices, holy sites, oil, and a few other things. In fact to a lesser extent oil was a factor in ancient warfare there as well since naptha was a much-sought-after commodity and it could be found there.

In any case, wars will continue as long as the Middle East is between us and what we want, or has something we want that we feel other people are an obstacle to our access. This can go anywhere from simple refusal to trade or instability leading to the blockage of trade, to "unfair" prices. The "we" in that sentence is as variable as the "they," but the simple fact of the matter is that geography, history, and geology have come together to make the Middle East the most volatile region on Earth. It may even be the original source of the idea of war, and certainly is the stage for the earliest recorded wars in the sense in which we know them. War will never end, and the problem of peacably resolving human conflict cannot be said to have been itself resolved, until these things are accomplished in the Middle East.

There are some people who think that when Europe and the US no longer require fossil fuels from the Middle East they can safely ignore it. After all, we don't necessarily need to use overland trade routes which involve these countries anymore. I would submit that the problem may not be so easily laid to rest as it would seem that ignoring the Middle East and allowing countries there to lag behind the entire rest of the world including other third-world nations in terms of technology, economy, civilization, education, etc has already cost us and is ultimately the root of the problem which has led us here. It's not a problem of intervening so much as intervening in the wrong way (setting up oppressive governments that discriminate against the most predominant religion, for instance). If we continue to ignore the plight of people who are desperately begging for relief from their suffering they will continue to feel the need to get our attention, and, failing that, inflict a little suffering on us. It's not a question of whether they are right (they aren't) in their tactics, it is a question of whether we are right in allowing the problems there to ocntinue unabated.

response from Turkey

[wolfgang_spangler]

In response to inquiries from the press about censorship, Turkey responded, "Gobble Gobble!!! Gobble Gobble Gobble!!! Gobble Gobble. Infidel. Gobble Gobble"

Very American of them too...

[FatSean]

The French want to outlaw the filming of violence by non-journalists but allows for sexual content...and the Murricans want to up the violence but censor anything vaguely sexual.

Turkey is the worst of both worlds it seems! Turkey....you're never going to join the EU this way. Probably best for the EU too, Turkey's economy is not so hot.

This is why

[jbeaupre]

I enjoy living in a country where not only is it legal to point out flaws and ridicule those in power, it is a national pastime. What more restrictive countries miss is that by letting everyone vent their opinions any time they want (and vote from time to time), dissent never seems to lead to revolution. Granted, this was a case of a Greek making fun of Turkey. A bit of historical animosity there. But a better response would have been along the lines of "Is that your best shot?" Maybe take a page from Cyrano. Like when an Israeli publication launched it's own anti-jewish cartoon contest in response to an Iranian newspaper's similar contest with the stated goal that they could self criticize better than any outsider (no idea on the outcome).

Would Greeece help?

[xs650]

Is Syria attacked Turkey from the rear, would Greece help?

Re:Would Greeece help?

[o'reor]

I am apalled at the number of replies that would deserve a "-1, *wooosh!*" moderation for not getting your joke in the first place ;-)

Narcistic Turkey vs. The World

[Denial93]

Turkey, as a country, has what in a human would be diagnosed as pathological narcism. They just jailed a Kurd for six months for respectfully referring to convicted rebel Abdullah Ocalan as "Mr Ocalan". They brought criminal charges against their Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk for mentioning a government-sponsored genocide almost 100 years ago. Turkey denies this holocaust.

Why do I say this? Just to make clear this new ruling is just a small symptom of a much wider problem. It shouldn't surprise us in any way, but merely drive home the point Turkey is currently rather distant from European ideas of how to apply state power. More insidiously, this new conflict also points at the ever-increasing difficulty of isolating minority opinions from outside critique - the only way to do it, ultimately, is the North Korean route. I don't think Turkey will do that - they have a very proud and nationalistic government, but it is not a dictatorship with the power to force the ever-increasing price of its ego issues on all of the population.

Re:Just learn about Turkish government

[julesh]

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk replaced something. Why don't you check out what he replaced. You will understand VERY clearly why he's a saint in Turkey.

I don't care what he did. Winston Churchill did great things when he lead Britain to defeat the Nazis, yet I can call him a fat drunken slob without fear of recrimination if I so desire. That's what freedom's about: not having to care about offending people just because they did something important.

Especially since Germany has similar laws

[wiredog]

Except those laws criminalize different speech. I fully expect YouTube to be banned in parts of the EU for hosting either old Nazi propaganda films or Holocaust denial.

Thats turkey for you

[unity100]

Turkey is a place where 'holy state' concept still lingers on. Anything said against the state, or 'holy' values instantly justifies and extreme measures - like banning of a whole mega site from ALL users in an 60 million nation.

it doesnt matter what purpose for the site is generally used or not - just say something that is not to the liking of the state, and voila, all is gone.

Turkey is not a modern country by any means unfortunately. Everything is shown to be in that direction by the turkish negotiators to european union, however suppression of the citizens by the government still continue on.

Recently, if you remember, a list of 30+ games including Knight online, counterstrike, halflife and such were banned in turkey from internet cafes with the state decision, citing reports from obscure, unknown local academician's reports that said 'these games teach kids violence'. These reports were given on the fly, with demand from government, in a few hours without any research. Simple as that. An executive decision that took half a day for the governmental bureucracy to take and implement.

Same goes for anything else - citizens are pariah to the state in turkey. If you go to get something done in a local government branch, the appointed/elected authority holders scorn over you, elected representatives of the assembly behave like they are local feudal lords, not as normal people elected to serve people. The current Finance Minister passes out FOUR laws in order to erase HIS OWN COMPANY'S tax debts to government, and nobody can oppose it. A newspaper/television says something not to the liking of the ruling party, and suddenly finance ministry starts a thorough and not-by-the-book tax examination of that newspaper/televison to suppress them.

Recently a law was prepared and proposed in order to make it much more easy for government to control what is being said on the internet, with the help of a certain media group's fud-spamming, saying that 'internet is evil and needs to be straightened out'.

Unfortunately this is turkey for you.

Some information about Ataturk

[sesshomaru]

Here's a Turkish blog with an excerpt from an article by Gary Brecher about the "Father of All Turks"

Gary Brecher: Glory to the Turks

Oh, and also here is the Pingus engine game, Gallipoli: The Game which has a very short bio of Ataturk on the page("Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Turkish): Killed a lot of Australians (and New Zealanders) at Gallipoli and therefore became the first President of Turkey."), but it also has a picture. You can play as Ataturk in the game which is a good example of Australian sardonic humor.

Re:sad

[Aladrin]

As noted in other posts, you can't criticize the Turkish government unless you want to be arrested. How do you tell a government that it's done something stupid if you can't do so, even a little bit, without being arrested?

The answer is simple: You leak the information to the world and let them do it for you.

Re:sad

[ak3ldama]

Dont the people of Turkey care? It is a Democracy. How can you have a democracy without criticizing those in power?
islam.

Insulting Turkey

[MillionthMonkey]

I was feeling embarrassed for my own country, which is drifting in this direction, and then I heard Turkey was enforcing a law making it explicitly illegal to insult it. Lots of countries have old laws on the books like this, and political factors make it difficult to either repeal or prosecute them, so they're just ignored. But in Turkey people have been actually prosecuted for violating this one- in modern times too!

Great going, Turks, real classy. Nobody could have insulted you any more deeply than you insulted yourselves. This law is being marvelled at around the world. Signapore's chewing gum law had nothing on this. Most of the news I hear from Turkey is about someone getting in trouble for "insulting Turkishness". Whatever previous impression I had of Turkey is gone. Now I always think of this law, and how embarrassing it must be to live in a country backwards enough to have such a thing.

BTW Turkey did play a role in the Armenian genocide; apparently Turks think a Turkish law making it illegal to say it in Turkey will convince the world otherwise. Turkey's genocide occurred 90 years ago, but this law makes it an issue again.

I suppose I shouldn't venture into Turkey after posting this, but I can't see ever wanting to visit such a place.

Re:Turkey scares the bejeezus out of me.

[basicguy]

" That is really true - you can tell a lot about a country by looking at movies. All small towns in the South are run by corrupt police, and they all have KKK meetings every weekend. Plus Sweden is stewardess orgy central, and Canada is full of flappy headed fart jokers, plus a few seal clubbing, back bacon eating French Canadians." You're partially right. Not everybody fits the stereotypes. I've lived in Canada, and now live in the South. Guess I really missed out not moving to Sweden ;-)

Well...

[deesine]

If you're against hyper-Turkish-nationalism, and the Armenian genocide is offtopic, then why did you just defend it? You're either disingenuous or hypocritical.

Re:Well...

[deesine]

If the disinformation and off-topicality are what bothered you, then why didn't you simply 1) Point out the errors, like the number of Armenians generally accepted as killed 2) Point out the non relatedness of the genocide to the topic at hand? The link you used, as the poster below me pointed out, is anything but unbiased, and even in your response you questioned the genocide's proper legal classification, as if to say we shouldn't be calling it a genocide, when just about every country other than Turkey calls it that. Whether or not you realize it, but in your attempt to counter the padded body count, you just defended the stance that attempts to downplay or deny the Armenian genocide.

Turkey vs. the Internet

[jabagi]

The Turkish government and bureaucracy does not understand the Internet yet. The legal system still holds user generated content sites responsible for policing the content and may legally stop them a take down order (similar to DMCA take down notices). For international websites, they may disable access till the dispute is cleared (similar to freezing bank accounts in criminal cases.) However the legal system is not yet aware of using IPs instead of URLs and such blocks as this one end up being nothing more than an annoyance. This mentality causes quite a lot of problems for Internet users in Turkey but let's not forget that this is not unique to Turkey. Before you criticize Turkey, please remember that the USA hosts a menace called RIAA whose sole purpose has become to stop P2P (they'd have better luck trying freeze hell.) And this latest block is not even remotely the stupidest legal act in Turkey; 1-2 years ago the government tried to revise IT related laws and declared that every web site must present its content to the local authorities, on paper, in triplicate! It took a few months to make the government understand that this was not possible. Disclaimer: I'm a Turkish citizen but not Turkish...

Link to video?

[chainLynx]

Um, how about a link to this alleged controversial video? Would be nice to know what the hubbub is all about...

My first reaction

[FriendOfBagu]

Turkey Censors YouTube

Censorship is serious, but there's no need to resort to childish name-calling!

And Ataturk himself wasn't into censorship

[Animats]

The ironic thing is that Ataturk himself wasn't big on censorship. He was something of a liberal dictator, and was responsible for turning Turkey into a secular, liberal democracy. Turkey is the only Islamic country in the Middle East that works.

A little info on who Ataturk (Mustafa Kemal) is

[unity100]

and what he did.

Actually Mustafa Kemal is a jacobin, someone who is extremely in line with French Revolution ideals. (Same ideals were in fact envisioned before french revolution in france with the likes of voltaire, rousseau and the contemporaries, and put forth as bill of rights in American Revolution and united states's founding ideals).

By that time, Turkey was Ottoman Empire. The 'holy state' understanding was in much heights after the ending of reign of Sultan Abdulhamid, who was an absolute monarchist, and ruled with an iron fist. Actually, that iron fist regime has ended with the intervention of modernists in the military, the Jonturks, who was roughly french revolution idealists, jacobenites, who Mustafa Kemal was a member of. They have led an army from modern day greece to istanbul, and effected the removal of Abdulhamid.

Pre world war I and in world war i, mustafa kemal shown much aptidude and prowess as a commander. In gallipoli, most known examples of his profess in matters military. This, have put him in much renowned position among the military commanders.

It was known that he was a republican (not in u.s. sense, but in a sense that is much more in line with Danton), and he and similar people wouldnt accept subsequent invasion and occupation and partition of turkey with the proposed Sevrés treaty that effectively turned Anatolia into modern day yugoslavia (you got my meaning), and therefore he was appointed to a non-existent, fud army by the Sultan (then Mehmed) to an obscure region of turkey so that he wouldnt stir anything up.

Instead, he resigned from the military, and Jacobenites (Jonturks, as they are known in turkish lingo) have gathered up in eastern anatolia, called for national assembly to be formed without approval from istanbul government, and created a national assembly with elected representatives there.

From that point on, the government in ankara, which was a rebel ragtag's convention in istanbul government's and occupation forces' eyes, was de facto government of anatolia.

Then this government proceeded to gather the spread-out resistance movements to the occupation (english, french, italian and then later greek) occupations of anatolia, and turned them into a regular army.

what ensues is known as 'battle of independence' in turkish history, which roughly summarizes a major war against occupying greek forces, who were being used as a thug by the british government in power than, and some local fighting against the french in southern regions of the turkey. curiously italians and turkish did not fight at all, italian occupation of allotted territories have been uneventful, neither side complaining from each other, and passing time peacefully until ankara government's victory against greek forces and establishment of turkish republic and subsequent removal of italian forces from turkish territories, which italy did themselves by their decision, again, uneventfully.

fight against the greek invasion, who was fueled by extremist nationalists in greece was bloody though, and many people died in both sides. fight ended when the final greek units were pushed out of izmir, in western turkey.

occupation forces in istanbul, who were british, did not create a skirmish with turkish forces, a standoff ensued, which ended with english forces pulling out as a result of Lausanne treaty, in which international community recognized the now Turkish Republic.

Immediately after, Mustafa Kemal embarked in many reforms. This is the main issue why Mustafa Kemal is idolized.

First, he ended the khaliphate, effectively ending mohammad's successors combined rule of matters religional and governmental. Secular state was introduced, based on rationale. This annoyed the hell out of islamic segments of turkey.

Second, he instituted educational reforms. There were 1 or 2 % people who were capable of reading & writing in turkey. After 20 years, this rate has gone to, what, 70% or so, if

Re:Just learn about Turkish government

[debrain]

I don't care what he did. Winston Churchill did great things when he lead Britain to defeat the Nazis, yet I can call him a fat drunken slob without fear of recrimination if I so desire.

You can also call him an alcoholic, but he might tell you you're ugly, and that he'll be sober in the morning.

Re:All this rhetoric, no understanding

[alan_dershowitz]

Here's a western-oriented Muslim country with a democratic secular government it imposed on itself.

Actually, it was imposed by the Turkish army. And every time the government has gotten out of line, the army has put it back.