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Blogger.com Banned In Turkey

Posted by timothy on from the no-longer-young-turks dept.

petermp writes "A Turkish court has blocked access to the popular blog hosting service Blogger (Blogger.com and Blogspot.com, owned by Google), since Friday, October 24th, 2008. According to BasBasBas.com, a Dutch blogger based in Istanbul, who alerted readers about the issue: 'It is suspected that the reason for this has something to do with Adnan Oktar, by some considered the leading Muslim advocate for creationism, who has in the past managed to get Wordpress, Google Groups, as well as Richard Dawkins' website [banned].'"

9 of 262 comments (clear)

  1. Turkey? by Guido+del+Confuso · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have to say, I'm really surprised this is happening in Turkey. Turkey is actually a fairly westernized country, and while it is predominantly Islamic, it is quite progressive on religious issues. Its constitution even guarantees freedom of religion (and Turkey has no official state religion), and since 1924 has maintained a secular government. I was led to understand that there is strong opposition in Turkey to the government interfering in matters of religion, but perhaps that is no longer the case for whatever reason...

    1. Re:Turkey? by CRCulver · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Its constitution even guarantees freedom of religion...

      Regrettably, this was never implemented well in practice, as both the Islamists and the secularists are suspicious of outside religious traditions, whether because they are not Muslim or because they are not "Turkish". Case in point, the attempts to wipe out Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Turkey. The law states that the Ecumenical Patriarch must be a Turkish citizen, and not brought from e.g. Greece or another Orthodox country, but the authorities have tried to shut down all Orthodox seminaries in Turkey so that it's increasingly difficult to raise up a successor.

    2. Re:Turkey? by camcorder · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Thank you now with this post, /. can be banned as well, and even *without needing court approval*. Since you were offensive to Kemal Ataturk.

    3. Re:Turkey? by the_arrow · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, Turkey has done some bad stuff and killed quite a lot of people, but never in the name of religion. Turkey is almost aggressively secular. The military is known to step in and take control whenever any religion gets to much power. There is at the moment 86 people in a single trial for treason because the tried to perform a coup against the government, which is run by an openly Islamic party (elected in a free and open election). But then the grandparent is also wrong in calling Turkey a Muslim country, the currently ruling party still tries to keep Turkey a secular country.

      --
      / The Arrow
      "How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
  2. Re:Reality knocks by justleavealonemmmkay · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's hope they will never be allowed to join the EU.

    Let's hope they change their ways so that we wish them to join the EU.

  3. Re:Reality knocks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's hope they will never be allowed to join the EU.

    Let's hope they change their ways so that we wish them to join the EU.

    Like a German comedian of turkish descent once said:

    What are you talking about? We're already here.

  4. Re:1 simple PGP script... by kdemetter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    All religions are dogmatic , and extremly dangerous if they becomes to powerfull.

    And it's everyone's right , or even duty , to guard against that. Period.

    --
    Slipping shoelaces ?
  5. Let's not argue... by Spartz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Let's work together instead of arguing on which country is better. The fact is, the situation sucks. Digiturk (not Oktar!) was able to get all of Blogger/Blogspot banned due to dated or poorly composed laws. It sucks, but it's the reality. What we need to do is spread the message, get it out in the open... A lot of media hasn't even picked up on it yet, I had to contact the media myself to get them to report on it (gave a short radio interview to radio 3FM in Holland this afternoon). Spread the news. Talk about it. Blog about it. Social bookmark it. Whatever you do. This is not just about Turkey and their laws, but the future of the internet. It cannot become acceptable that countries (or ISP's) block off parts of the internet on false pretenses. You can read the article on why exactly Blogger got banned in Turkey here: http://www.basbasbas.com/blog/2008/10/26/digiturk-causes-turkish-ban-of-bloggerblogspot/ No more speculation.

    --
    tweet tweet
  6. Re:a mistake you have there by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Excuse me, but doesn't what you're saying boil down to this: periodically, the people of Turkey elect leaders which campaign on a fundamentalist Islamic platform, who, once elected, start to push the country towards theocracy. At which point the Army intervenes. Which is pretty much what the GP was saying, no?