Turkish Assembly Votes For Censoring of Web Sites

unity100 writes "CNN has some news about a recent development in Turkey where the Turkish assembly, totally out of line with Turkey's commitment to EU membership, has voted to have sites that 'insult to the founder of modern Turkey' censored from entire Turkish population. This, just about a month after the decision to censor YouTube was reached by the Turkish courts. 'On Thursday, lawmakers in the commission also debated whether the proposal should be widened to allow the Turkish Telecommunications Board to block access to any sites that question the principles of the Turkish secular system or the unity of the Turkish state -- a reference to Web sites with information on Kurdish rebels in Turkey.'"

Comments

Re:What's wrong with Europe?

[owlnation]

I know the US has some problems with free speech, but what the hell is wrong with Europe lately? For instance, Germany will soon be attempting to reintroduce legislation into the EU banning swastikas and Holocaust denial (Source: BBC). You can't have selective free speech!

Actually it's much worse than you might think. Germany, France, Austria, Slovakia and others already do have laws restricting Nazi related expression (although with Germany's ever growing new Nazi problems this is actually understandable).Google, eBay and other sites are already censored in those countries for that reason.

The UK has no constitutional right to free speech, and has censored it on a few occasions. Most notably with relation to Northern Ireland in the late 80's and early 90s, where anyone related to the IRA when interviewed on TV had to have their words spoken by an actor.

And yes, under the current UK Government things have got much much much worse. It's not just the cameras. Now they are even considering testing those suspected of social security fraud with lie detectors.

There is very little free speech in Europe, so Turkey will fit right in...