No YouTube in Turkey

A Turkish court has issued a ruling banning access to YouTube in that country. This article from Wednesday's Times of London has the details:

A court in Istanbul has issued an order denying access to the video-sharing website YouTube. The state owned Turk Telecom implemented the ban today after an escalating dispute between Greek and Turkish users of the site.

The court order was issued yesterday and most internet users logging onto the site in Turkey are met with a holding page with a Turkish message, which translates as: “Access to this site has been denied by court order ! ...”.

Greek and Turkish YouTube users have been trading video insults over the past few months, attracting much coverage in the Turkish press. Greek videos reportedly accused the founding president of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, of homosexuality; a Turkish user responded by calling Greece the birthplace of homosexuality.

It is illegal to criticise either Ataturk or Turkishness in Turkey and the prosecutor’s office in Istanbul acted despite YouTube’s agreement to take down the offending videos.


On Thursday, Reporters Sans Frontieres released this update:

An Istanbul court yesterday ordered Internet Service Providers to block access to the US video-sharing website Youtube because of content deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish state. After the site agreed to remove the offending videos, the same court lifted the order (but it was still blocked at 1515 GMT today).


It will be interesting to see if the ban is, in fact, lifted. Even if it is, this incident raises yet more questions about the status of intellectual freedom in Turkey.