COURT BLOCKS ACCESS TO YOUTUBE IN TURKEY
By Thomas Crampton

International Herald Tribune, France
March 7 2007

PARIS: A court in Turkey on Wednesday ordered blockage of all access
to YouTube, the popular video-sharing Web site, over a video deemed
insulting to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.

The ban followed a week of what the media in Turkey dubbed a "virtual
war" of videos between Greeks and Turks on YouTube and came as
governments around the world – including France – grappled with the
freewheeling content now readily posted on the Internet.

The largest Internet provider in Turkey, Turk Telecom, immediately
complied with the ban and cut off access to the site.

"We are not in the position of saying that what YouTube did was an
insult, that it was right or wrong," Paul Doany, the chairman of Turk
Telecom, told the state-run Anatolia news agency. "A court decision
was proposed to us, and we are doing what that court decision says."

Visitors to the site in Turkey on Wednesday afternoon were greeted
with the message first in Turkish and then in English: "Access to
site has been suspended in accordance with decision
no: 2007/384 dated 06.03.2007 of Istanbul First Criminal Peace Court."

YouTube expressed dismay over the move, adding that the offending
video had been removed and that the company was working with the
government to resolve the situation.

"We are disappointed that YouTube has been blocked in Turkey,"
the company said in a statement. "While technology can bring great
opportunity and access to information globally, it can also present
new and unique cultural challenges."

A later court ruling said the service could be restored after YouTube
removed the offending material, Anatolia reported, but it was not
clear when that would be.

The ban comes as Turkey struggles to prove its human rights credentials
to the European Union and as governments around the world grapple
with content posted to the Internet by private citizens.

YouTube faced a court-ordered national ban in Brazil for several
days in January after footage of a model cavorting in the sea with
her lover kept reappearing on the site.

Separately, activists in France this week warned that a recent law
against posting video of violent acts would stifle free expression.

The French law, which was intended to criminalize "happy slapping" –
acts of violence committed for posting on the Internet – could also
criminalize the recording of police brutality, activists said.

"I don’t think the French government intended to attack user-generated
content, but that is the effect," said Julien Pain, a spokesman
for the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders. "If
someone films a policeman wrestling someone to the ground, that can
be considered a criminal act."

While the French law has provisions to protect professional journalists
or those who record violence to turn it over to the authorities,
passersby remain liable for fines of as much as ~@75,000, or nearly
$100,000, and five years in prison, Pain said.

"This law removes protection for citizen-journalists or bloggers
who would want to record the violence if riots start again in the
Paris suburbs," Pain said. "The distinction between professional and
amateur journalists is no longer valid since all Internet users are
now in a position to create and disseminate information."

The video that prompted the ban in Turkey allegedly said that Ataturk
and the Turkish people were homosexuals, according to news reports.

Insulting Ataturk is a criminal offense in Turkey. In a front page
story, the newspaper Hurriyet said thousands of readers had written
to YouTube complaining about the video.

For Turkey, the ban will present a further hurdle as concern grows
in Brussels that Ankara is flouting free- speech norms necessary to
join the European Union.

In recent weeks, Turkey has pledged to revise a controversial law
that makes insulting Turkishness a crime. The law – Article 301
of the Turkish penal code – has resulted in prosecutions against
leading Turkish intellectuals, including the author Orhan Pamuk,
a Nobel laureate, and Hrant Dink, an Armenian-Turkish journalist
murdered in January.

But the government has refused to drop Article 301 altogether, while
the law against insulting Ataturk, which has given rise to the YouTube
case, is considered even more sacrosanct.

The European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, has been
particularly concerned by Article 301, which attracted global criticism
last year when Pamuk was put on trial for telling a Swiss newspaper
that more than a million Armenians were massacred by Ottoman Turks
during World War I.

Krisztina Nagy, spokeswoman for the EU expansion commissioner, Olli
Rehn, who is overseeing Turkey’s EU accession process, declined to
comment, saying the commission was still trying to confirm the facts
surrounding the YouTube case.

But other EU officials said privately that the abrupt decision to
block access to YouTube would give ammunition to thsoe who argue
that the avowed secularism of Turkey does not sufficiently safeguard
free speech.

The latest controversy comes as Turkey is going through a difficult
period in its relations with the EU following the decision late last
year by Union leaders to partially suspend entry negotiations over
Ankara’s refusal to open its ports to Cyprus, an EU member.

Dan Bilefsky contributed reporting from Brussels and Sebnem Arsu
from Istanbul.