Turkey Restricting Internet Freedom
The Turkish government, led by the Justice and Development Party (or AK Parti), continues to restrict Internet freedom. In the last year alone, the Turkish government and courts have blocked some 850 websites, among whom blogger.com and YouTube.
Erkan Saka spoke to the Christian Science Monitor about the restrictions, saying: “I feel very helpless and frustrated. I am not allowed to use something very natural now. A basic means of communication is being prevented.”
Saka runs erkansaka.net, which can be reached by Turks. But many other websites Saka used in the past cannot.
YouTube, for instance, was banned after some Turks complained about videos that mocked Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Instead of contacting YouTube itself, trying to convince the company to take the videos down or to simply ignore them, a court decided to block YouTube altogether.
Dr. Richard Dawkins’ site was also banned by a court, as was the website of one of Turkey’s major newspapers. These sites were blocked after Islamists complained about them, and took the issue to court.
What needs to happen in Turkey is a change in the law: it is way too easy for courts to block entire websites, only because a few people see some content on it they find ‘insulting.’ This law limits the freedom of speech to such a degree, that Turkey is in the very real danger of giving itself the reputation of being less open than Syria.
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The reason why Turks don’t take it as seriously as they should is because they can reach those forbidden sites via other means on their home computer. There are special websites that directly allow for entrance to those forbidden sites. Such idiotic rules and laws yet no enforcement dilute the meaning of having laws in the first place.
Thus people think lawmakers are idiots and laws are for idiots to abide by. And when there are ridiculous laws that are not even properly enforced, no one believes in leadership or law anymore. This is true for other things besides internet banning as well. We have bans on smoking that are not practiced either. Same with guns. You may also drive at 200 km/hr and not get caught by radar but at some other place you get a speeding ticket without speeding.