TURKEY AGAIN BLOCKS ACCESS TO YOUTUBE

PanARMENIAN.Net
23.01.2008 16:21 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A Turkish court has once again blocked access to
the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube, and reports on Sunday
suggested the ban was a response to clips that allegedly insult
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the country’s founding father.

Users trying to access the site from Turkey were met with notices in
English and Turkish saying access to the Web site was banned under
an Ankara court’s order.

The notices said the court order was issued Jan. 17.

In March, another Turkish court blocked access to YouTube, which is
owned by California-based Google Inc., for two days after a complaint
that some clips on the site insulted Ataturk, a war hero who founded
Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. The ban was lifted after
YouTube removed the offending videos.

The current ban was also imposed because of videos that were allegedly
disrespectful of Ataturk.

It is illegal in Turkey to insult Ataturk, a revered figure whose
portrait still hangs in nearly all government offices almost 70
years since his death in 1938. It was not clear how long the current
ban would last. The state-run Anatolia news agency said YouTube
officials issued a statement saying the company hoped access would be
re-established quickly. The YouTube bans in Turkey have highlighted
the country’s troubled record on free expression. Several prominent
Turkish journalists and writers, including winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature Orhan Pamuk, have been tried for allegedly "insulting
Turkishness", the AP reports.