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A Turkish court has banned YouTube for hosting video insulting Ataturk
A Turkish court has reportedly once again blocked access to the popular video-sharing Web site, YouTube in the country because of clips allegedly insulting the country’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The AP reports that Internet users trying to access from Turkey were met with notices in English and Turkish saying it was banned under an Ankara court order issued Jan. 17.
The notice said, “Access to this web site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2008/55 of T.R. Ankara 12th Criminal Court of Peace. Last year in March, another court had issued similar order and had blocked access to YouTube for two days, after prosecutors told the court that clips insulting Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had appeared on the site. The ban was lifted in three day time after YouTube removed the offending videos.News reports suggest that the recent ban comes after a video compared Atatürk with a monkey. This led some YouTube users to suspect that a video entitled “ataturk was a gay and a monkey turkey turkiye turks” led to the block.
There is no information on how long the current ban would last. The state-run Anatolia has said that officials from YouTube issued a statement saying the company hoped access would be re-established quickly. In September, a court in the eastern city of Sivas had ordered a ban after saying video on the site insulted Ataturk, President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the army. However, the ban was never implemented.
Under article 301 of the Turkish penal code, public denigration of Turkishness, the Republic of Turkey, Atatürk, and other national symbols, is punishable by imprisonment. Several prominent Turkish journalists and writers -- including Nobel literature prize winner Orhan Pamuk -- have been tried for allegedly insulting “Turkishness.”
Turkey is not the only country that has blocked YouTube in the past. Last year, the Thai government banned the site for about four months because of clips seen as offensive to Thailand’s revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Also in May, users in Moroccans were unable to access YouTube after users posted videos critical of Morocco's treatment of the people of Western Sahara. TMC
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