Turkey blocks thousands of foreign websites
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Deutsch: [Die Türkei sperrt tausende ausländische Webseiten | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1537]
Following the entering into force in November 2007 of the Turkish Law No.
5651 entitled Regulation of Publications on the Internet and Suppression of
Crimes Committed by means of Such Publication, a large number of websites
have been blocked in Turkey.
According to Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, Founder and Director of Cyber-Rights &
Cyber-Liberties (UK), there are at present more than 6000 websites blocked
in Turkey including known sites such as YouTube, WordPress, GoogleGroups
and Sites, DailyMotion and others. Some of the sites are blocked by court
orders while most of them are blocked by administrative blocking orders
issued by the Telecommunications Communication Presidency (TIB).
Some websites are blocked because they are considered obscene, others for
involving child abuse and sexual exploitation, gambling, betting,
prostitution and others for being considered as related to crimes committed
against Atatürk.
Part of the websites has been blocked by courts although the reasons for
blocking them were outside the scope of Law No. 5651. The website blocking
can also occur in relation to intellectual property and websites such as The
Pirate Bay or MegaUpload are constantly blocked in Turkey. Myspace has been
recently blocked and, for a temporary period of time even Farmville, the
game offered by Zynga.com through Facebook was also blocked based on an
administrative decision because Zynga promotes gambling through some of its
social games. Two other sites related to the largest gay community in Turkey
were blocked the same day and it seems the sites intend to challenge the
order.
Since May 2009, TIB has decided not to publish any statistics or details
related to the websites blocked on the basis of Law No. 5651 which as Dr.
Akdeniz says is “a step backwards and in the absence of information,
openness, and transparency”.
From Farmville to Gayville, Internet censorship continues in Turkey
(4.10.2009)
From Farmville to Gayville, Internet censorship continues in Turkey
At least 6000 websites censored from Turkey (22.09.2009)
Unblock The Banned Websites In Turkey Petition (28.09.2009)
http://www.besthostingservices.net/215/unblock-the-banned-websites-in-turkey-petition/
EDRi-gram: Turkey: Another blocking order against YouTube (3.12.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number6.23/youtube-turkey-blocked-november2008