2525) Internet Censorship In Turkey / Balkan Investigative Reporting

Updated May 8th 2011

1. Turkish Internet filtering plan ‘unconstitutional,’ experts say
2. Turkey: Are Ankara Web Regulators Running Amok? | EurasiaNet.org
3. 138 Words Banned from the Internet
4. Who Is Yaman Akdeniz
5. TIB’s ‘forbidden words list’ inconsistent with law, say Turkish web providers
6. VoA: Critics Challenge New Internet Controls in Turkey
7. Internet Censorship In Turkey
8. Digging Deeper: A Guide for Investigative Journalists in the Balkans
9. More: How Free Is The Media - Internet Governance - Advocacy Handbook

Above Figure On The Banned Sites Were 6.000+ (Dated: September 22nd, 2009) -Current Figure Is 12.000+ (Dated May 2011). . .



Turkish Internet filtering plan ‘unconstitutional,’ experts say

May 4, 2011
ERISA DAUTAJ ŞENERDEM
ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

A plan to require Internet users in Turkey to choose one of four content-filtering packages is unconstitutional and violates the right to freedom of expression, legal experts and civil-society groups have said.

‘[Turkish authorities] look at how they can impose regulations that limit the freedom of expression on the Internet, rather than promoting this freedom,’ Orhan Erinç, the chairman of the Turkish Journalists Community, told the Hürriyet Daily News in a phone interview Wednesday. He said that mentality had not changed for more than three decades, since the beginnings of radio and television broadcasting in the country.

The decision by the Prime Ministry’s Information Technologies Board, or BTK, to approve the filtering regulation is inconsistent with Turkish laws and with the country’s Constitution, said Yaman Akdeniz, a cyber-rights activist and a law professor at Istanbul Bilgi University.

‘The [BTK’s] decision is arbitrary and has no legal basis,’ Akdeniz told the Daily News on Tuesday, saying the board has no authority to make such decisions.

The news portal Bianet.org has filed a complaint on these grounds to the Council of State, arguing that existing Turkish legislation gives the BTK no authority to make and enforce such decisions and that the filtering application itself violates the Turkish Constitution and other laws.

‘Bianet.org argues in its complaint that the decision violates the Constitution, thus I expect the decision will be canceled by the Council of State. We still have to wait,’ Akdeniz said.

As the board’s decision does not have a legal basis, its limitations and authorities are not clear either, according to Kerem Altınparmak, an expert in human rights law who spoke Tuesday in an interview on NTVMSNBC. ‘According to what extent [and what measures] will such a decision be applied? There is no [provision] on this [on the decision].

‘If we assume that a family consists of five members, of ages between 8 and 60 and it has only one computer: which package shall it choose?’ Altınparmak said, adding that adults risked to be treated like children regarding access to various Internet websites.

BTK Chairman Tayfun Acarer has said the debate on the filtering application is ‘inaccurate’ and politically motivated.

‘Bringing this topic to the agenda these days is political,’ Acarer said, according to an Anatolia news agency report Wednesday.

Four Internet filters

Under a decision on ‘Rules and Procedures of the Safety of Internet Use,’ approved by the BTK in February, Internet users in Turkey will have to choose one of four Internet packages: family, children, domestic or standard. The list of websites filtered by each package will be decided by the BTK but will not be made public.

The change will be implemented starting Aug. 22.

According to Acarer, Internet users will maintain their current access to Internet websites if they chose the standard package. ‘How is it possible that [the BTK’s decision] is being manipulated in this way?’ he asked, saying a similar application was also available in European countries.

‘If we were to require everyone to take the children’s package, I would agree with the criticism,’ Acarer said. He added that people would be subscribed to packages other than the standard one only upon their own demand.

Appeal to the European court

The Turkish interactive website İnci Sözlük said Wednesday that it would appeal the BTK decision to the European Court of Human Rights if it does not get the results it seeks after exhausting all domestic judicial channels, according to a report by the television channel NTVMSNBC.

The BTK’s decision is inconsistent with the provisions on freedom of expression in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights, said Erinç of the Turkish Journalists Community.

‘Turkey is party to both of these, which have supremacy over Turkish laws, according to the new constitutional amendments brought after the Sept. 12, 2010, referendum,’ Erinç said, adding that such provisions were ‘unfortunately’ not respected by Turkey.

The debate on the Internet filter heated up after the Telecommunications Directorate, or TİB, sent Internet hosting firms a list of 138 words, urging the companies to ban websites that contained any of these words in their domain name. Although the TİB said such a request aimed to protect children from exposure to dangerous content on the Internet, experts argued it was illegal. The TİB withdrew its request after harsh public reaction.

Access to thousands of websites is banned in Turkey, based on the Internet Ban Law No. 5651. Reporters without Borders put Turkey in the category of ‘countries under surveillance’ in its latest report on ‘Internet Enemies.’

Internet filtering plan spurs political debate

Turkey’s ruling party has said new Internet filtering requirements are not a ban on online content but a means of ‘control’ as the main opposition promises to open access to websites that have been blocked.

The decision by the Prime Ministry’s Information Technologies Board, or BTK, to require that Internet access be subjected to one of four content filters should not be considered censorship, said Ayşe Nur Bahçekapılı, the parliamentary group deputy chairwoman of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP.

‘As a party, we already fight against bans but there are some websites that interfere in people’s private lives. So there should be a control mechanism to protect private life,’ she told the Hürriyet Daily News.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, responded to the filtering decision by launching a new motto on its official website: ‘You close [Internet websites], we will open them.’

‘There is no [time] in Turkey when we do not face new censures and pressures. There are many barriers put in front of the right of people to be informed in Turkey,’ the CHP said in an online statement on the issue, comparing the Internet restrictions to the censoring and imprisonment of journalists.

In the statement, the party said it had opened up its official website’s ‘CHP News’ section to reader comments. ‘Let this be an example to all those who after [silencing] the free press, try to silence the Internet after Aug. 22,’ the statement read.

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Turkey: Are Ankara Web Regulators Running Amok? | EurasiaNet.org

May 3, 2011 – 1:03pm, by Dorian Jones

When Apple’s iPad went on sale recently in Turkey it sold out in less than an hour. The voracious appetite of Turks for web gadgetry seems matched only by the Turkish government’s desire to control access to the Internet.

Turkey already has the unenviable record of banning more sites than any other European country. The number is believed to be around 12,000, although official figures haven’t been released since 2009. Now the number seems set to skyrocket following the adoption of new regulations by the Turkish Telecommunications Directorate, or TİB, which administers the internet. TIB has recently banned the use 138 words on Turkish domain sites.

For example, sanaldestekunitesi.com (virtualsupportunit.com) faces closure because it has one of the proscribed words, ‘anal,’ can be found in its domain name. The number ‘31’ too is banned, as it is slang in Turkish for male masturbation. Other banned words include English words ‘gay,’ ‘beat,’ ‘escort,’ ‘homemade,’ ‘hot,’ ‘nubile,’ ‘free’ and ‘teen.’

Turkey’s Internet advocates have strongly criticized the new measure, warning of chaos and substantial losses to net users, providers and customers. ‘I think the TİB personnel who worked on the issues related to banning access are not endowed with the necessary technical knowledge and skills’ said Devrim Demirel, founder and chief executive officer of BerilTech, Turkey’s leading domain name and business intelligence company.

The changes are ostensibly designed to protect children, TIB officials claim. Thousands of sites have already been individually banned by the courts for similar reasons. The country’s governing Justice and Development Party, (AKP) with its Islamist roots, has used the same reasoning to introduce tough controls on the public consumption of alcohol.

Experts say it is relatively easy for Internet users in Turkey currently to circumvent controls by re-registering abroad, as there are many ways of accessing blocked sites via proxies and by using open domain servers. Legions of web users are believed to routinely flout the government’s restrictions. Past scofflaws include none other than the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who once admitted to reporters that he accessed the YouTube video sharing site, which was banned at the time in Turkey. The ban was reportedly instituted because of a number of videos hosted on the site that denigrated the memory of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish state.

Even more draconian measures are set to take hold this August. Under the banner of ‘Safe Use of the Internet,’ all Internet users will have to choose from one of four filter profiles provided by Internet Service Providers. ‘We are concerned that the government [will] enforce and develop a censorship infrastructure’ said Yaman Akdeniz, a law professor at Bilgi University in Istanbul and an expert on Internet-related legal issues.

‘Even the standard profile is a filter system, and the problem is, it is government mandated, government controlled,’ Akdeniz continued. ‘There are no other countries within the EU or Council of Europe that has a similar system.’

Civil society activists, meanwhile, are concerned by the way in which the new controls were adopted: officials resorted to governmental decree, shunning parliamentary debate and approval. It is a method of rule-making that AKP leaders of late have used with growing frequency. In 2010, for example, a government decree banned couples from going abroad for artificial insemination. The new Internet regulations were not widely known until they were publicized by a Turkey-based human rights website, Bianet.

The fear is that the new filters will be used to block not only pornographic sites, but also the political ones. ‘Depending on the government, depending on the ministers, one can be put on the blacklist’ said Bianet’s head Nadire Mater. ’This is not democracy. We’ve experienced this before, because police from time to time distributed these blacklists to Internet cafes or companies: we were getting complaints from the visitors. They were saying that we don’t have any access [to] Bianet.’

The new regulation will also open the door for unspecified sanctions against anyone who seeks to circumvent filters, or who seeks access to proscribed websites. Under the new filter system the government will have access to individual web-user data.

Sites that are banned, as well as the criteria used for banning them, remain secret. ‘Already under existing controls, along with pornographic sites, hundreds of political sites are banned’ said Akdeniz, the law professor. ’And although the government claims that they predominantly block access to pornographic websites, several hundred alternative-media websites, especially websites dealing with the Kurdish debate, are blocked for political reasons.’

The new controls are now being challenged in the Danistay – Turkey’s highest administrative court. A number of cases are also pending at the European Court of Human Rights, including a case over the banning of the YouTube.

Editor’s note:
Dorian Jones is a freelance journalist living in Turkey. “
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138 Words Banned from the Internet

The Telecommunication Communication Presidency banned 138 words and terms from the internet. The list also includes words used in everyday life. The number of access bans is expected to increase; also food home delivery sites or football supporters’ clubs will be affected.

Ekin KARACA,
Istanbul – BİA News Center
29 April 2011,

The list of ‘banned words’ is the latest outcome of a series of oppressive applications that day by day restrict internet freedom in Turkey more and more.

In a notification sent to all service providers and hosting companies in Turkey on Thursday (28 April), the Telecommunication Communication Presidency (TİB) forwarded a list of banned words and terms. Yet, this list also includes a number of ‘ordinary’ words that can be deemed indispensible in usual everyday life.

According to the list, names like ‘Adrianne’, ‘Haydar’ or words like ‘Hikaye’ (‘Story’) fall under the ban. Assoc. Prof. Yaman Akdeniz, lecturer at the Bilgi University School of Law, applied for the right to information to the Internet Department of the Telecommunication Communication Presidency as part of the Information Technology and Communication Council.
Internet expert Akdeniz requires information on controversial list

Akdeniz required information from TİB on several issues. The list comprises a total of 138 ‘forbidden words’ and is classified in three different groups. Akdeniz inquired why the first names ‘Adrianne’ and ‘Haydar’ from group II on the list were added in particular.

In the scope of Law No. 4982 on the Right to Information, internet expert Akdeniz also questioned who the names ‘Adrianne’ and ‘Haydar’ actually belong to.

Again in accordance with Law No. 4982, Akdeniz demanded to obtain the entire range of information and documents related to the preparation of the list.

In the same context, the internet expert requested information and documents regarding the execution of the new application.

Akdeniz put forward that the above mentioned information and documents were of immediate public interest and available at the Telecommunication Communication Presidency as part of the Information Technology and Communication Council. ‘The explanation of these documents is of public interest’, he stated and referred to Article 1 of Law No. 4982 that enshrines ‘the right to information according to the principles of equality, impartiality and openness that are the necessities of a democratic and transparent government’.

State forbids the word ‘forbidden’…

Several words on the list of ‘banned words’ are part of everyday life, e.g. the words Adrianne, Animal, Hayvan (‘Animal’), Baldiz (sister-in-law’), Beat, Buyutucu (‘enlarger’), Ciplak (‘nude’), Citir (‘crispy’), Escort, Etek (’skirt’), Fire, Girl, Ateşli (‘passionate’), Frikik (‘freekick’), Free, Gey (‘gay’), Gay, Gizli (‘confidential’), Haydar, Hikaye, Homemade, Hot, İtiraf (‘confession’), Liseli (‘high school student’), Nefes (‘breath’), Nubile, Partner, Pic, Sarisin (‘blond’), Sicak (‘hot’), Sisman (‘overweight’), Teen, Yasak (‘forbidden’), Yerli (‘local’), Yetiskin (‘adult’) etc.

According to the notification of TİB, domain names containing the words on the list will neither be assigned nor used and access to the existing ones will be suspended.
Sites of supermarkets or football supporters’ clubs affected as well

Considering certain supposedly ‘obscene’ words, the list is expected to cause a significant increase of censored internet sites.

Accordingly, words that overlap with two or three-word terms that are considered ‘obscene’ will be affected by the ban, too.

As reported by tknlg.com, also websites related to food home deliveries, online grocery shopping, IT, football supporters’ clubs or sites of advertising companies will be affected by the list of banned words. (EKN/BB/VK)
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Who Is Yaman Akdeniz

Yaman Akdeniz is an Associate Professor of Law at the Human Rights Law Research Centre, Faculty of Law, Istanbul Bilgi University. Until May 2009 Akdeniz was a Senior Lecturer at the School of Law, University of Leeds. Akdeniz is also the founder and director of Cyber-Rights.org, based in the UK since 1997, and the co-founder of ilgiEdinmeHakki.org, a pressure group working in the field of freedom of information law in Turkey. His recent publications include Internet Child Pornography and the Law: National and International Responses (London: Ashgate, 2008); and Racism on the Internet (Council of Europe Publishing, 2010). Akdeniz also authored the Report of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media on Turkey and Internet Censorship published in January 2010, as well as the Study of legal provisions and practices related to freedom of expression, the free flow of information and media pluralism on the Internet in the OSCE participating States (November 2010). For further information about his work, see:
http://cyberlaw.org.uk/publications
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TİB’s ‘forbidden words list’ inconsistent with law, say Turkish web providers

TİB’s ‘forbidden words list’ inconsistent with law, say Turkish web providers – Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review

April 29, 2011
ERISA DAUTAJ ŞENERDEM
ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

The TİB sent a list of 138 words Thursday to Turkish web-hosting firms, urging them to ban Internet domains that include such words.

The TİB sent a list of 138 words Thursday to Turkish web-hosting firms, urging them to ban Internet domains that include such words.

A request made Thursday by the Turkish Telecommunications Directorate, or TİB, to ban a total of 138 words from Turkish Internet domain names has no legal basis and has left companies unsure of what action to take, according to experts.

‘Providing a list and urging companies to take action to ban sites that contain the words and threatening to punish them if they don’t has no legal grounds,’ Yaman Akdeniz, a cyber-rights activist and a law professor at Istanbul Bilgi University, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review in a phone interview Friday. Akdeniz said no authority could decide that an action was illegal just by association.

The TİB sent a list of 138 words Thursday to Turkish web-hosting firms, urging them to ban Internet domains that include such words. The directive leaves tens of thousands of Turkish websites facing the risk of closure.

‘Hosting companies are not responsible for monitoring for illegal activities; their liability arises only if they take no action after being notified by the TİB – or any other party – and are asked to remove certain illegal content,’ Akdeniz said.

The TİB cited the Internet ban law number 5651 and related legislation as the legal ground for its request. The law, however, does not authorize firms to take action related to banning websites.

‘The hosting company is not responsible for controlling the content of the websites it provides domains to or researching/exploring on whether there is any illegal activity or not. They are responsible for removing illegal content when they are informed and there is the technical possibility of doing so,’ according to Article 5 of the law.

On Thursday, following the heated debate surround the ‘forbidden’ list, the TİB said the list was sent to hosting firms for informatory purposes. But the statement further confused the situation, as the body threatened companies with punishment if they did not obey its directions regarding the list in the first letter sent to service providers.

‘The TİB’s press statement is not clear, nor is it satisfactory,’ Akdeniz said, adding that it was a pity the directorate was still standing behind the list.

The TİB’s action is inconsistent with the related law and bylaw, and its subsequent statement contradicted both the request and the legislation,’ Devrim Demirel, founder and chief executive officer of BerilTech, Turkey’s leading domain name and business intelligence company, told the Daily News on Friday. He added they were still confused and did not know what their next move would be.

Demirel said they had no answers to the questions from hundreds of his company’s customers from Turkey and abroad, including Google’s com.tr and Yahoo’s com.tr services.

The TİB’s letter said the body would punish companies for not taking action to ban domains containing ‘forbidden words,’ but it did not specify what kind of punishment it implied, according to Demirel. ‘It is still not clear whether there will be administrative or other sanctions.’

Noting that the implementation of the TİB’s request on the forbidden names list could have many negative technical implications, Demirel said, ‘I think the TİB personnel who worked on the issues related to banning access are not endowed with the necessary technical knowledge and skills.’

He said customers had not taken any illegal action, but domains that include the words TİB wants to filter and then ban could incur losses.

‘There is no guarantee in the existing related legislation that I will not be asked to compensate the company in such a case,’ Demirel said, adding that there were many other complex technicalities like this one that could emerge should the TİB’s request be implemented.

Demirel said he received TİB’s letter via an email, which he said was neither ethical nor secure.

‘Do we have to make a technical check of the sender’s identity each time the TİB sends us an email? Requests with such important implications should be sent officially to each company’s office address, with the respective seal and signatures,’ he said.

Despite the problems, Demirel said banning websites in itself was the wrong approach. ‘Banning access to websites is in itself a censuring service.’

The TİB’s latest request also implied censure, he said.

Banned words have many scratching heads

The effect of the TİB’s request could see the closure of many websites that include a number of words. For example, the website ‘donanimalemi.com’ (hardwareworld.com) could be banned because the domain name has the word ‘animal’ in it; likewise, ‘sanaldestekunitesi.com,’ (virtualsupportunit.com) could be closed down because of the word ‘anal.’ Websites will also be forbidden from using the number 31 in their domain names because it is slang for male masturbation.

Some banned English words include ‘beat,’ ‘escort,’ ‘homemade,’ ‘hot,’ ‘nubile,’ ‘free’ and ‘teen.’ Some other English words would also be banned because of their meanings in Turkish: ‘pic,’ short for picture, is banned because it means ‘bastard’ in Turkish. The past tense of the verb ‘get’ is also banned because ‘got’ means ‘butt’ in Turkish. Haydar, a very common Alevi name for men, is also banned because it means penis in slang.

‘Gay’ and its Turkish pronunciation, ‘gey;’ ‘çıplak’ (naked); ‘itiraf’ (confession); ‘liseli’ (high school student); ‘nefes’ (breath) and ‘yasak’ (forbidden) are some of the other banned words.
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VoA: Critics Challenge New Internet Controls in Turkey

Dorian Jones | Istanbul April 25, 2011

Turkey already bans more websites than any other European country. Now the government is set to introduce new controls that officials say are needed to protect children. Critics fear they represent an effort control the web.

The Turkish government calls its new Internet controls Safe Use of the Internet. They are scheduled to take effect in August and will require all Internet users to choose from one of four filter profiles operated by their server provider. Law Professor Yaman Akdeniz at Bilgi University in Istanbul says the measures open the door to government censorship of the Internet.

‘We are concerned that the government [will] enforce and develop a censorship infrastructure,’ said Akdeniz. ‘Even the standard profile is a filter system and the problem is government mandated, government controlled and there are no other countries within the EU or Council of Europe that has a similar system. And the decision also states if anyone who tries to circumvent the system, further action may be taken.’

Government officials say the new regulations are needed to protect families, particularly children, from pornography. But critics say it is unclear which websites can be banned and for what reasons, and the regulations can also be used to silence political websites. Nadire Mater is the head of the Turkish human-rights web page Bianet.

‘Depending on the government, depending on the ministers, one can be put on the blacklist,’ said Mater. ‘This is not a democracy. We’ve experienced this before, because police, from time to time, they distributed these blacklists, and in some Internet cafes or companies we were getting the complaints from the visitors they were saying that we don’t have any access [to] Bianet.’

Bianet criticizes the government for establishing the new measures by decree, rather than by a vote in parliament and is challenging the new controls in court. Web freedom is a concern within the European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join. EU enlargement commissioner Stefan Fule stressed those concerns before the EU parliament earlier this year.

‘Freedom of press means guaranteeing a public space for free debate, including on the Internet,’ said Fule. ‘The European Parliament’s draft resolution rightly underlines these issues.’

That concern centers on Turkey’s record of courts banning more websites than any other European country. In 2009, the state stopped releasing figures, but the latest number is believed to be in excess of 12,000. Again, Professor Akdeniz.

‘Several thousands web sites have been blocked,’ said Akdeniz. ‘And although the government claims that they predominantly block access to pornographic websites, several hundred alternative-media websites, especially websites dealing with the Kurdish debate, are blocked access to for political reasons.’

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Internet Censorship In Turkey

Content:

1. Report of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media on Turkey and Internet Censorship
   by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, Associate Professor, Human Rights Law Research
   Center, Faculty of Law, Istanbul Bilgi University.


2. Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe The Representative on Freedom of the Media PRELIMINARY REPORT
   by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, Associate Professor of Law,
   Faculty of Law, Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey


3. SPEAK UP! - Intro - Freedom of Expression and Media in the Western Balkans and Turkey 6 May 2011, in Brussels
   by Dinka Zivalj, Spokesperson/Head of Media Unit Regional Cooperation Council


4. Transcript of the Speech by Professor Jerzy Buzek
   President of the European Parliament
   "SPEAK UP conference organised by the European Commission" Brussels, 6 May 2011


5. SPEAK UP! Conference on Freedom of Expression And Media in the Western Balkans and Turkey
   International Press Institute (IPI) Contribution: Measures to Improve Press Freedom in Turkey

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Digging Deeper: A Guide for Investigative Journalists in the Balkans




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At least 6000 websites censored from Turkey
penguen.jpg

Since the Law No. 5651 entitled Regulation of Publications on the Internet and Suppression of Crimes Committed by means of Such Publication came into force in November 2007, access to a considerable number of foreign websites including popular websites such as YouTube, Geocities, DailyMotion, WordPress, Google Groups, and Google Sites have been blocked from Turkey under the provisions of this law by court orders and administrative blocking orders issued by the Telecommunications Communication Presidency (TIB). [Blog entry by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz]

Currently, under the provisions of Law No. 5651 access to over 3000 websites is blocked from Turkey. In terms of official statistics, it was revealed by TIB that as of 11 May, 2009, 2601 websites are blocked in Turkey under the provisions of Law No. 5651. While 475 (18%) of the 2601 websites are blocked by court orders, the majority, with 2126 websites (82%), are blocked via administrative blocking orders issued by TIB. In terms of the 475 court orders so far, 121 websites are currently blocked because they were deemed obscene (Article 226 of the Turkish Penal Code), 54 websites are blocked because they involved sexual exploitation and abuse of children (Article 103(1) of the Turkish Penal Code), 19 websites are blocked because of provision of gambling (Article 228 of the Turkish Penal Code), 20 are blocked because they involved betting, and 54 websites were ordered to be blocked in relation to crimes committed against Atatürk (Law No. 5816, dated 25/7/1951). 32 of these 54 blocking orders were recurring orders involving approximately 17 websites (majority involved YouTube) issued by different courts around the country. Furthermore, 5 websites were blocked in relation to prostitution (Article 227, Turkish Criminal Code), and one website was ordered to be blocked in relation to the facilitation of the use of drugs (Article 190 of the Turkish Penal Code).

More interestingly, 197 websites were blocked by courts for reasons outside the scope of Law No. 5651 but the detailed breakdown for these orders was not provided by TIB. It is however understood that TIB executed the blocking orders even though they do not involve the catalogue crimes listed in Article 8. The number of websites blocked outside the scope of Article 8 by the courts was 69 in May 2008 but reached nearly 200 by end of May 2009.

In terms of the 2126 administrative blocking orders issued by TIB, the majority, with 1053 blocking orders involved sexual exploitation and abuse of children (Article 103(1) of the Turkish Penal Code), 846 involved obscenity (Article 226 of the Turkish Penal Code), 117 involved football and other sports betting websites (Law No. 5728, article 256), 74 involved gambling sites (Article 228 of the Turkish Penal Code), 20 involved prostitution websites (Article 227 of the Turkish Penal Code), 11 involved websites facilitating the use of drugs (Article 190 of the Turkish Penal Code), 2 involved crimes committed against Atatürk (Law No. 5816, dated 25/7/1951), and one involved encouragement and incitement of suicide (Article 84 of the Turkish Penal Code).

It should be noted that TIB recently decided NOT to publish and reveal the detailed the official blocking statistics with regards to Law No. 5651, and since May 2009 I have not had access to such statistics. TIB’s decision is a step backwards and in the absence of information, openness, and transparency it will be even more difficult to monitor the current regulatory regime in Turkey.

Furthermore, blocking orders can also be issued by courts and by public prosecutors with regards to intellectual property infringements subject to the supplemental article 4 of the Law No. 5846 on Intellectual & Artistic Works as was witnessed with the blocking of Myspace, Last.fm, and akilli.tv during last few days. Such orders are predominantly issued with regards to websites related to piracy (e.g. The Pirate Bay), and IP infringements (e.g. Justin.TV), and media reports suggest that at least 3,000 websites are blocked under law No. 5846 from Turkey, and majority are blocked indefinitely. The Pirate Bay and MegaUpload are among those websites which are constantly blocked. During 2008, Google owned Blogspot, and Blogger were subjected to blocking under these provisions for a limited period of time because of football streaming piracy.

Therefore, currently, it is alleged that access to at least 6,000 websites is blocked from Turkey, and it could be speculated that the number is even higher than that. Engelliweb. com (http://engelliweb.com/) currently details 4196 blocked websites.





More: How Free Is The Media - Internet Governance - Advocacy Handbook



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