 |
Turkey sued at European court on YouTube ban
Akgül said the decision by an Ankara court to ban access to the site in response to videos posted on the Web site deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, censors people's right to access Internet resources and media freedom in Turkey.
Akgül said they appealed to the relevant court in Turkey because of the damage caused to YouTube members and citizens as a whole on the basis of the ban being against the law and the benefit of the public. The court reportedly rejected the İTD’s initial claim, asserting that the objection should have been made within a week of the verdict on banning YouTube. Objecting to the court’s decision to ban access to the video-sharing Web site, İTD appealed to a superior court, but it refused to hear the case.
“We were forced to appeal to the ECtHR as all domestic recourse has been exhausted,” Akgül said. Noting that the YouTube ban is against the Constitution, universal principles of law and several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, Akgül said Turkey is fighting the Internet ban.
“Violation of the 10th article of the European Convention on Human Rights [ECHR] constitutes the primary reason for our appeal,” Akgül said. Article 10 provides the right to freedom of expression including the freedom to hold opinions, and to receive and impart information and ideas.
“The Information Technologies and Communication Institute [BTİK] could have enabled certain videos to be filtered, which are the reasons for the ban. However, they have diminished the rights of citizens to express their opinions freely,” Akgül claimed. He also said the ban is a violation of Article 6 of the ECHR on the right to a fair trial and thus should be immediately upheld.
Akgül said millions of people share their educational materials on YouTube every day and that the ban limits communication. “The BTİK should have banned certain insulting videos, not the whole Web site. They have enough technical, financial and administrative resources to carry that out,” Akgül concluded.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s telecommunications authority has reportedly asked YouTube to launch its Turkish version which the authority asked to be unblocked in the country last week.
Tayfun Acarer, chairman of BTİK, said Turkish officials had had several meetings with YouTube executives to lift the ban. “YouTube is available in special versions created for 22 languages. We expect YouTube to take a step and put forward a proposal for the solution,” he added.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| AMANDA PAUL |  |
||
| Ukraine: a lost country | |||
| MÜMTAZER TÜRKÖNE |  |
||
| The 52nd anniversary of May 27 | |||
| ABDULLAH BOZKURT |  |
||
| Turkey and Mexico: Distant yet so close | |||
| BERİL DEDEOĞLU |  |
||
| Yemen and beyond | |||
| ARZU KAYA URANLI |  |
||
| On Memorial Day a few words to make your day memorable | |||
| ABDÜLHAMİT BİLİCİ |  |
||
| Google kidnaps Gül! | |||
| CUMALİ ÖNAL |  |
||
| Critical months for Egypt | |||
| DOĞU ERGİL |  |
||
| Qualities of power | |||
| İHSAN YILMAZ |  |
||
| The Egyptian elections, Islam and Islamists | |||
| EMRE USLU |  |
||
| Operational errors | |||
| MARKAR ESAYAN |  |
||
| There is need for a new initiative | |||
| JOOST LAGENDIJK |  |
||
| Europe can’t have it all. Or can it? | |||
| HASAN KANBOLAT |  |
||
| Are Russian tourists being discouraged from visiting Turkey? | |||
| MELİH ARAT |  |
||
| Handmade | |||
| KLAUS JURGENS |  |
||
| Back to the ’80s | |||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
