The court delivered the verdict due to videos on the Web site, which, according to the court, contained insults to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. These videos have been uploaded from Greece. Actually since Jan. 5, there has been a Greek-Turkish clash on You Tube. A three-minute video was uploaded to YouTube from Turkey, showing homosexuals with Greek flags which outraged Greeks. Then, a YouTube user from Greece with the username "Stavraetos" uploaded an animation video onto YouTube in which Atatürk applies lipstick. The video was around 33 seconds in length. After receiving almost 220,000 letters , YouTube removed the video.Poul Doany, the president of Turk Telekom said that it is impossible to reach YouTube via Turk Telekom, adding that it might be possible to enter YouTube via other Internet service providers. Doany said that if someone were to try to enter the website via Turk Telekom the user would see an notice indicating that access to this site is suspended by a court verdict.
"We are not in the position of evaluating whether YouTube contains insults, or if its wrong or right. What we are doing is implementing the court order we have received. If the verdict is revised than we will reactivate YouTube," Doany said.
Meanwhile, as reported by Turk Telekom officials, access to YouTube is suspended only from the DNS servers of Türk Telekom. If other DNS servers are defined for Internet access, there will be no problem in accessing YouTube.
Özlem Toğuz, a lawyer in the field of IT and communications, said that from a technical point of view, this decision is meaningless because by changing the domain name of the service, it is possible to reach YouTube. Also YouTube requires new members to sign "liability limitation" and thereby, the users uploading videos are held responsible for the content of what they post. "The verdict also prevents the right of Turkish users to post their reactions. It does not penalize Greek users," Toğuz said. She added that in order to overcome these problems, Turkey needs an Internet law after discussing what appropriate censorship would be and how violations should be punished.
Kürşat Çetinkoz, head of the Liberal Office, an organization for freedoms, said it was a case of censorship and not acceptable. "You Tube is very useful in sharing videos and information. Closing the site for a single tasteless video of some fanatic Greeks is just like burning a blanket for one small flea." Çetinkoz also added that You tube officials have removed the video that was insulting Atatürk and have promised to take measures preventing similar videos from being uploaded again.
Çetinkoz claimed the judge and the prosecutor did not understand what Internet is and suggested that they have never visited the You Tube. "They would feel ashamed to ban it if they had a proper understanding of the Internet," he said and added "This ban is also questionable in terms of whether or not it serves the purpose because the ban is only in Turkey; however, the rest of the world can still enjoy it freely -- it is ostrich like behavior, supporting the notion that if we can not see anything then there is no problem." Çetinkoz added that this ban promotes the Greek video, making it more popular.
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