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Archive for the ‘YouTube’ Category

YouTube Banned by a Far East Court |The Moscow Times

29 July 2010, By Alexandra Odynova

A Far East court has banned YouTube and four other web sites for ‘extremist’ content in a ruling that promises to raise new worries about free speech.

The Internet is widely recognized as the last uncensored media in Russia, and the ruling nudges the country toward the likes of Iran and Pakistan, which have blocked YouTube.

Incidentally, the court’s decision also bans videos by President Dmitry Medvedev.

The Komsomolsk-on-Amur City Court said Rosnet, a Khabarovsk region Internet provider, must block three online libraries — Lib.rus.ec, Thelib.ru and Zhurnal.ru — as well as YouTube.com and Web.archive.org, which stores archived copies of old and deleted web pages.

YouTube.com was banned for the nationalist video ‘Russia to Russians,’ which was ruled extremist by a Samara court in November and subsequently placed on the Justice Ministry’s federal list of banned extremist materials.

The other four sites contained Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf,’ blacklisted by an Ufa court in March.

Once added to a list of extremist materials, a book or video can only be removed by another court ruling. The list, first published in July 2007, has since swelled from an initial 14 items to 686.

Judge Anna Aizenberg passed her verdict on YouTube on July 16, but the decision was only made public on Wednesday, when Rosnet filed an appeal.

The provider said it has proposed several ways to filter the illegal content without blocking access to the entire web sites, but the court has ignored all alternatives.

‘Not a single one of our employees supports or condones extremism,’ Rosnet said in a statement that also pointed out inconsistencies in the ruling.

YouTube’s parent company, Google, denounced the ruling as unconstitutional. ‘In our opinion, the court’s decision … to limit access of Rosnet users to the whole YouTube.com site, not to a particular video, breaches the right for freedom of information, guaranteed by Article 29 of Russia’s Constitution,’ Google spokeswoman Alla Zabrovskaya said in an e-mailed statement.

YouTube can remove illegal videos after a simple request is submitted to its moderator, she added.

The company is not going to appeal but will follow the case, Zabrovskaya said.

Russia’s courts have banned web sites in the past, but this is the first time that a prominent foreign site such as YouTube has come under fire.

In April 2009, a Cherepovets city court in the Volgograd region banned the Samizdat online magazine, which hosts oeuvres by thousands of authors, including Alexander Pushkin, because writings by one of them were ruled extremist for criticizing the city’s main employer, Severstal.

Earlier this year, YouTube was blocked in Pakistan because some users tried to upload Facebook images of the Prophet Mohammed.

Other countries that have blocked YouTube are China, Libya, Morocco, Turkey and Iran, with only the latter two retaining the ban at present.

Russians are increasingly using YouTube to post video appeals to Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin about official corruption.

Medvedev is no stranger to YouTube himself, having launched his own channel on the site. The Komsomolsk-on-Amur’s court ruling did not comment on the fact that its decision puts a ban on the president’s videos along with the nationalist one.

The Kremlin had no immediate comment about the ruling.

Despite a campaign by Medvedev to promote Internet literacy among officials, many of them remain unfamiliar with the workings of the World Wide Web.

At the same time, extremism charges are frequently seen as a tool used by authorities to limit freedom of speech in Russia.

On July 12, two prominent Moscow art curators were sentenced to heavy fines for staging an art exhibit that angered radical Orthodox groups and the Russian Orthodox Church.

YouTube Banned in Russia Over Racist Video

29.07.2010

A court in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Russia has demanded a Russian ISP block access to YouTube because the site hosted ‘Russia for Russians,’ which was judged to be an extremist video.

The court’s decision also applies to the Internet Archive and three online libraries, Lib.rus.ec, Thelib.ru and Zhurnal.ru, all of which were found to host writings by Adolf Hitler.

With this ruling, Russian authorities join a long list of governments that have blocked access to YouTube (YouTube) at some point or another, including China, Brazil, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. YouTube material has also been censored in the U.S. and U.K.

Generally, these bans are instituted because the videos on the popular hosting site show something a government would rather its citizens not see, from state police brutality at a protest to unflattering depictions of its leadership to ‘immoral’ or sexual content.

However, this particular ruling stems less from a desire to protect a country’s internal PR and more from a desire to keep Russian media — including citizen-generated and social media — free from the possibly harmful influences of ultranationalist, racist and xenophobic speech. The phrase ‘Russia for Russians’ itself is a slogan of hatred used against the multi-ethnic society that exists in Russia today, and searching for the phrase ‘Россия для русских’ on YouTube will return a number of disturbing videos typical of the white nationalist movement around the world.

But intentions aside, this ruling still constitutes what many other governments would consider a prohibition or restriction of free speech.

The owner of Rosnet, the ISP affected by today’s decision, is Aleksandr Ermakov. He spoke to media today, saying essentially that the court had thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

‘All of mankind is using this website. And providers like ours do not violate Russian law. But we are still being forced to close the website so that our users can not log on and watch the videos. This is absurd! According to this logic, we have to demolish all buildings that have swastikas on the walls. Or when two people are discussing a bomb over the phone, we have to take away the phones from all people across Russia.’

More on Rosnet’s legal position can be found at this website.

Moreover, a Google (Google) rep told the Moscow Times, ‘To limit access of Rosnet users to the whole YouTube.com site, not to a particular video, breaches the right for freedom of information, guaranteed by Article 29 of Russia’s Constitution.’

Written by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, Associate Professor, Human Rights Law Research Center, Faculty of Law, Istanbul Bilgi University, and Director of Cyber-Rights.Org. (lawya@cyber-rights.org)

Published also by Index on Censorship on 29.07.2010

Internet censorship is alive and kicking in Turkey with at least 5.000 websites currently being blocked from the country. Some commentators estimate that number to be around 8.000 while the official blocking statistics are currently being kept secret by the Telecommunications Communication Presidency (TIB).

While YouTube is the most well known example, several websites are blocked for political reasons (including leftist, and pro-Kurdish news websites) outside the scope of the current law. As was documented by a January 2010 Report of the OSCE on Turkey and Internet Censorship news sites such as Atilim, Özgür Gündem, Keditör, Günlük Gazetesi, and Firat News Agency are blocked indefinitely by the courts. The website of El Mundo, a Spanish newspaper is also currently blocked from Turkey because of a single video clip deemed to be illegal.

In June 2010 the situation in terms of Internet censorship has moved from bad to worse in Turkey as 44 IP addresses jointly used by YouTube and Google were initially blocked by the Telecommunications Communication Presidency, and then by the Ankara’s 1st Criminal Court of Peace. The reason behind the IP address blocking was to make it even harder to access YouTube from Turkey (which was already blocked since May 2008) but the IP blocking paralyzed access to numerous Google related services such as Analytics, Translate, Docs, Books, Map, and Earth. The author of this article together with a fellow academic, Dr. Kerem Altiparmak appealed against the decision of the Court arguing that the blocking of Google related services had no legal basis, remains unlawful, and is regarded as a serious infringement on freedom of speech, and too far-reaching than reasonably necessary in a democratic society. That appeal has been dismissed by the Court and the decision of the Court is final. Having exhausted all the available national remedies an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights is imminent.

So, we marched to protest…
Internet users are known to be glued to their computers and their keyboards, and so far protests have been through Facebook groups, Twitter, and through the popular FriendFeed social network. However, a protest walk was organized by a web based organization called March Against Censorship, and the Istanbul Mayor’s Office was notified by EMO – The Chamber of Electrical Engineers. The whole protest march was organized in less than 10 days but there was lot of media coverage prior to the protest, and social media platforms were extensively used to raise the profile of the event.

Despite it was a weekend day, and really hot, approximately 2000 persons marched against government censorship of the Internet on Saturday, the 17th of July, 2010. The first ever protest march involving Internet censorship started in the popular Taksim Square while the protestors carried a banner that stated “Censorship-free Internet”.

The main placard carried by the protestors read: “Censorship-free Internet”

The one hour long march included demonstrators from several civil society organizations, and Internet groups including Cyber-Rights.Org.TR (run by the author of this article), Young Civilians, ‘Sansüre Sansür’ (Censor Censorship), ‘Sansüre Karşı Ortak Platform’ (Joint Platform against Censorship), the satirical Penguen Magazine, Turkish Netizen movement, and INETD – the Internet Technologies Association. Demonstrators had whistles, portable music systems and tambourines.

Several exciting banners coloured the march including “Do not click on our freedom,” “Censorship protects you from the truth,” “Do not touch my porn”, “This placard has been banned by a court order”, “Say no to censorship on political websites,” and “Censorship offends me”.

The anti-censorship protest march ended in the Galatasaray square with a press declaration that called for the abolishment of Law No. 5651 entitled Regulation of Publications on the Internet and Suppression of Crimes Committed by means of Such Publication which forms the basis of the Turkish Internet Censorship Infrastructure.

The demonstrators demanded unrestricted Internet access from the government in the name of freedom of speech and freedom of information. The members of the Joint Platform against Censorship announced that there will be several protest events including marches at the capital city of Ankara, and in Izmir, the third biggest city in Turkey. It remains to be seen whether the government will listen but certainly the users raised their voice, this time in the streets rather than in front of their keyboards.

Summary judgment confirms ’safe harbour’ protection for YouTube | Pinsent Masons LLP

OUT-LAW News, 24/06/2010

YouTube is protected by the safe harbour provisions of US copyright law and is not guilty of copyright infringement when users post unauthorised videos to the site, according to the US court hearing a $1 billion suit brought by media giant Viacom.

YouTube only becomes liable for copyright infringement once a copyright owner tells it of specific illegal files, the court said, giving summary judgement in YouTube’s favour.

Viacom filed the lawsuit in 2007, claiming that Google-owned YouTube’s business was based on copyright infringement and that, knowing that the site was full of copyright violations, it profited from the unauthorised use of its copyrighted material.

The US District Court for the Southern District of New York has ruled, though, that YouTube only becomes liable for infringement once it has been told of specific videos that infringe specific copyrights and fails to act to remove them from its site.

Like European Union law, US law the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) allows online service providers to avoid liability for their users’ law-breaking actions and absolves them of any burden to monitor their service for infringements of the law.

Once companies are told of law-breaking, though, they must act quickly to disable, remove or block the content or become liable, the safe harbour provisions of the DMCA say.

Viacom argued that Google did not deserve safe harbour protection because it knew that, in a general sense, infringement was taking place on a massive scale.

‘[Google is liable] for the intentional infringement of thousands of Viacom’s copyrighted works, … for the vicarious infringement of those works, and for the direct infringement of those works,’ said the Court’s ruling, quoting from Viacom’s case. ‘[Google] had ‘actual knowledge’ and were ‘aware of facts and circumstances from which infringing activity [was] apparent’ but failed to ‘act expeditiously’ to stop it.’

Viacom said that Google profited from YouTube’s carrying of copyrighted material and had it in its power to stop infringement but did not do so, and was therefore liable for the infringement.

The Court said that what it had to decide was whether Google had to have notice of specific infringements before it was forced to remove videos or whether a ‘general awareness’ of infringing activity was enough to make it liable if it failed to remove material from its service.

The Court outlined the thoughts of committees from the US’s two parliamentary chambers and said that they indicated that specific knowledge of individual infringements was what a company needed to have before it became liable for those infringements.

‘The tenor of the foregoing provisions is that the phrases ‘actual knowledge that the material or an activity’ is infringing, and ‘facts or circumstances’ indicating infringing activity, describe knowledge of specific and identifiable infringements of particular individual items,’ said the ruling. ‘Mere knowledge of prevalence of such activity in general is not enough. That is consistent with an area of the law devoted to protection of distinctive individual works, not of libraries.’

The Court said that Viacom can have no quibble with how YouTube’s current system operates.

‘The present case shows that the DMCA notification regime works efficiently,’ the ruling said.
‘When Viacom over a period of months accumulated some 100,000 videos and then sent on mass take-down notice on February 2, 2007, by the next business day YouTube had removed virtually all of them.’

The Court said that previous cases made it clear that the responsibility to find and identity infringing material was the copyright holder’s, not the online service provider’s. ‘If a service provider knows (from notice from the owner, or a ‘red flag’) of specific instances of infringement, the provider must promptly remove the infringing material,’ it said.

‘If not, the burden is on the owner to identify the infringement. General knowledge that infringement is ‘ubiquitous’ does not impose a duty on the service provider to monitor or search its service for infringements,’ the ruling said.

Judge Louis Stanton rejected Viacom’s claims that YouTube was like file sharing software publishers such as Grokster or Lime Wire and that the same legal principles should apply in this case as did in successful actions against those companies.

Those companies distributed software ‘with the expressed intent of succeeding to the business of the notoriously infringing Napster’, Stanton said in his ruling. YouTube, on the other hand, provided a platform for content and removed infringing material when informed about it.

The Court gave a summary judgment in Google’s favour on all the points it considered, and told the companies to consult with each other on whether any disputes had been left unresolved by the ruling.

BBC News – Pakistan to monitor Google and Yahoo for ‘blasphemy’: “Pakistan to monitor Google and Yahoo for ‘blasphemy’

25.06.2010

Google website – file Pakistan says the main website will be unaffected

Pakistan will start monitoring seven major websites, including Google and Yahoo, for content it deems offensive to Muslims.

YouTube, Amazon, MSN, Hotmail and Bing will also come under scrutiny, while 17 less well-known sites will be blocked.

Officials will monitor the sites and block links deemed inappropriate.

In May, Pakistan banned access to Facebook after the social network hosted a ‘blasphemous’ competition to draw the prophet Muhammad.

The new action will see Pakistani authorities monitor content published on the seven sites, blocking individual pages if content is judged to be offensive.

Telecoms official Khurram Mehran said links would be blocked without disturbing the main website.
Cartoon controversy

The ban on Facebook was lifted after about two weeks, when the site blocked access to the page, called Everybody Draw Muhammad.
Protesters condemn a page of Facebook – May 2010 The Draw Muhammad page on Facebook sparked protests in Pakistan

Facebook itself is not on the new list of websites to be monitored. A number of links from YouTube will be blocked but not the main site itself.

Many Muslims regard depictions of Muhammad, even favourable ones, as blasphemous.

In 2007, the government banned YouTube, allegedly to block material offensive to the government of Pervez Musharraf.

The action led to widespread disruption of access to the site for several hours. The ban was later lifted.

Approximately 2000 persons marched against government censorship of the Internet on Saturday, the 17th of July, 2010. The protest march started in the popular Taksim Square and ended in the Galatasaray square with a press declaration that called for the abolishment of Law No. 5651 which forms the basis of the Turkish Internet Censorship Infrastructure.

I was on the frontline with fellow civil society representatives and the participation to the protest was better than we expected. Media presence was also brilliant and both local and international press representatives followed the protest march. (Dr. Yaman Akdeniz)

Turkish group opens court case over Google services | Reuters

Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:48am EDT

* Thousands of websites blocked in Turkey

* Turkey asking Google for $20 million in taxes

* Row sparks questions over freedom of speech

By Thomas Grove

ISTANBUL, June 28 (Reuters) – A Turkish Internet rights group opened a court case on Monday to end what it says are illegal restrictions on Google services, the latest step in a debate over Internet freedom in Turkey.

Turkey has clashed with Google before and closed down Google’s (GOOG.O) video sharing platform YouTube in 2008 for videos it said insulted the country’s revered founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Internet advocates say efforts to limit access to the video website have caused illegal restrictions on other Google services such as Google Maps and Google Analytics.

‘Millions of Internet users and thousands of companies that use Google services have been victimised,’ said the Internet Technologies Association in a statement sent to the court.

The group says access to Google services has slowed down and in some cases became unavailable after Google Internet Protocol (IP) addresses were blocked in an attempt to hinder access to other websites.

The Internet Technology Association opened a court case against Turkey last year at the European Court of Human Rights over the banning of YouTube, one of thousands of Internet sites that are closed in Turkey, a European Union candidate country.

Turkey wants Google to open an office in Turkey and says the Internet giant owes some $20 million in taxes from revenues generated from the video site.

‘(YouTube) has entered a fight with the Turkish Republic,’ said Communications Minister Binali Yildirim last week.

‘No matter how much of a fuss is made, we will not bow our heads,’ he said in parliament.

Google representatives in Turkey did not respond to requests for comment on the issue.

Turkey’s AK Party government says it has broadened the scope of public debate since taking power in 2002. But curbs on websites have raised concerns. Freedom of speech reforms have ground to a halt in recent years, while the number of closed Internet sites has risen.

As of May 2009 nearly 3,000 Internet sites were closed, according to Turkey’s information technology watchdog, though advocacy groups put the number nearer 5,000.

‘There is no one here in Turkey that makes the effort to protect freedom of expression, there are 60,000 different videos about Turkey in YouTube, and ten have been found to be insulting,’ said Mustafa Akgul, head of the advocacy group and an Internet expert at Bilkent University in Ankara.

Analysts have criticised the ease with which citizens can apply to have an Internet site closed down, with a form readily available on the information technology board’s website.

Most sites in Turkey closed by court order are due to allegations that they encourage suicide, contain libel, child pornography, help users access drugs or promote prostitution. (Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Turkey faces legal challenge over YouTube ban | World news | The Guardian

Internet rights group claims restrictions on access to Google-owned sites illegally discriminate against users

* Nichole Sobecki in Istanbul
* guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 July 2010 18.41 BST

The Turkish president, Abdullah Gul. The Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, has spoken out against the ban. Photograph: Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images

An internet rights group has launched a legal challenge in Turkey over a ban on access to a host of Google-owned sites.

The case, in which the Internet Technologies Association argues that the restrictions illegally discriminate against millions of users, is the latest front in an ongoing dispute that raises questions about free speech in a country attempting to join the EU.

‘It’s an infringement on our fundamental human rights, the freedom of conversations and our right to information,’ said Yaman Akdeniz, an associate professor of law at Istanbul Bilgi University and founder of the thinktank Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties.

Turkey’s censorship of the internet dates back to 2007, when a law was passed to tackle child pornography and websites that encourage suicide, drug use, gambling or prostitution. The law broadened state powers by creating a government office with the authority to shut down websites without a court order.

YouTube was banned in 2008 after a video was posted on the site showing Greek football fans taunting Turks and making claims about the country’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

But the site still regularly scores among the top 10 most visited in Turkey, largely due to the use of proxy servers to circumvent the ban.

‘Some people call us Atatürk-haters because we want YouTube to be accessible in Turkey,’ said Akdeniz. ‘But things need to change here.’

Ankara has accused Google of ‘waging a battle’ against Turkey and dodging more than £13m in taxes generated from YouTube revenues – a charge that the US internet company has flatly denied.

Binali Yildirim, Turkey’s minister for transport and communications and the most visible figure behind the ban, said: ‘This site has entered a fight with the Turkish Republic, but Turkey will not accept this.’

But there has even been mounting anger over the ban among those in power. This month President Abdullah Gul expressed his opposition in a series of tweets, saying free speech restrictions were preventing Turkey from ‘integrating with the world’. He said he has instructed officials to look into ways to overcome the ban.

Richard Howitt, a British MEP and spokesman for the European parliament’s committee on Turkey, has warned that the ban puts ‘the country alongside Iran, North Korea and Vietnam as one of the world’s worst offenders for cyber censorship’.

English: Minister Yıldırım: YouTube or any Other Ordinary Person… – Bianet

In the context of the access ban for the YouTube website, Transport Minister Yıldırım addressed YouTube officials, ‘You will be treated just the same way as the ordinary people are treated in the Turkish Republic.

Erol ÖNDEROĞLU
hukuk@bianet.org
Ankara – BİA News Center
30 June 2010, Wednesday

Transport Minister Binali Yıldırım joint the discussion on the access ban imposed to the video sharing site YouTube two years ago. ‘Everybody in this country is obliged to abide by the laws. We do not meddle with anybody’s freedom to do internet commerce. Turkey is a state of law. Everybody should be tied to the force of law’, the minister said.

Yıldırım had a message for the people protesting the internet censorship as well, ‘They might be willing representatives and passionate advocators; that is not of our concern’.

Yıldırım reminded the fact that the Turkish government initiated the process to become a member of the European Convention on Cyber Crimes. Member states of the convention correspond with each other whether legal exchange should be carried out regarding any incident, he argued.
YouTube treated like any ordinary person…

During a speech delivered at the award ceremony of the ‘IT 500′ survey carried out by the Interpromedia Research Service, Yıldırım said, ‘YouTube is treated just like any other ordinary person’.

As reported by the news channel CNN Türk, Yıldırm stated that ’shortcuts have already become a tradition’ in Turkey. He continued, ‘This is a global brand, blah blah blah… ‘Sir, how can you stick up to this huge company’. If you believe in universal law and if you respect the sovereignty of the countries, you have to stick to the country’s rules regardless of who you are dealing with. A citizen from the country ‘X’ does not have priority in country ‘Y’. This conception is incompatible with democracy and modernity’.

‘Unfortunately, there are people in our country defending this issue on behalf of modernity. That hurts. Everybody is obliged to abide by the law of this country. Nobody has priority. This can be a willing representative or a passionate advocator, it does not concern us’.

‘We say, ‘go ahead, if you do business in this country, you will be treated before the law just as any other ordinary person in the Turkish Republic. We are not concerned with anybody’s freedom regarding internet commerce. Turkey is a state of law. Everybody should be tied to the force of law’.
‘Informatics does not get on well with the legislation’

Minister Yıldırım indicated that informatics and legislation do not get on well with each other. He argued that informatics is an area that ruins memorization, abolishes conservatism and creates a change of attitude. Legislation on the other hand pursued to keep everything under control, he said.

Assoc. Prof. Dr Mustafa Akgül, president of the Internet Technologies Association İNETD, filed a criminal complaint against restrictions of certain Google services. He also applied to the administrative court in respect to the ‘temporary access ban’ imposed on YouTube on 5 May 2008 which is still in effect today.

The file concerned with the access ban to the YouTube side has also been forwarded to the European Court of Human Rights. (EÖ/VK)

The Associated Press: Turkey tightens Internet control in YouTube feud

By SUZAN FRASER (AP) – 25.06.2010

ANKARA, Turkey — Furious over Internet insults of the country’s beloved founder, Turkey has gone on the offensive against Google, tightening a ban on YouTube and cutting public access to a host of Google-owned sites.

Turkey’s communications minister has accused the Internet giant of waging a battle against Turkey and dodging taxes. But the government faces widespread public anger and attacks from the political opposition for restricting freedoms.

Even the president has spoken out against banning internet sites — using his Twitter account — after Turkey restricted access to some Google pages earlier this month.

The controversy is a setback for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, which won plaudits for carrying out democratic reforms but now stands accused of placing Turkey in the same class as countries already notorious for tight Internet controls.

‘If the government doesn’t now put an end to the Internet ban that has extended to certain Google services … Erdogan’s name will be remembered along with that of Internet prohibiter Ahmadinejad,’ wrote Haluk Sahin, a professor of media studies and columnist for Radikal newspaper, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran cracked down on free use of the Internet during its disputed presidential election last summer.

Even for Turkey, exercising control of the internet is not new.

The country began blocking access to websites in 2007, after parliament adopted an a law against cyber crime in an effort to curb child porn, prevent the dissemination of terrorist propaganda and stamp out illegal gambling. Websites deemed to be disrespectful of Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and of religious beliefs were also outlawed.

Under court order, Turkey’s telecommunications authority banned access to YouTube, the video-sharing site, in May 2008, after users complained that some videos insulted Ataturk. Earlier this month, Turkey expanded the ban to include some Google pages that use the same Internet Protocol addresses as YouTube, to prevent users from circumventing the ban. The search giant Google Inc. is YouTube’s parent company.

Hundreds of internet users have signed an online petition denouncing the ban as an affront to ‘free speech and rights to access information.’ Signatories are calling for the resignation of the telecommunications officials and Communications Minister Binali Yildirim.

Three information technology groups are challenging the ban in courts.

President Abdullah Gul threw his weight behind opponents of the ban in a series of tweets June 14, saying the Internet gag was preventing Turkey from ‘integrating with the world.’ He said he has instructed officials to look into ways of overcoming the ban, including changing laws if necessary.

‘I cannot approve of Turkey being in the category of countries that bans YouTube (and) prevents access to Google,’ the president said.

The opposition Republican People’s Party, which under new leadership is trying to present itself as a viable alternative to Erdogan’s government in elections next year, brought the issue to parliament Thursday.

‘The whole of Turkey is disturbed. Reaction, criticism, protests are increasing by the day,’ lawmaker Emrehan Halici said. ‘Unfortunately, we are again faced with censorship in our country.’

Yildirim, the minister in charge of Internet issues, responded by accusing YouTube of attacks against Turkey.

‘This site is waging a battle against the Turkish Republic but Turkey will never accept it,’ he said.

He accused Google of failing to abide by Turkish laws and failing to cooperate with Turkish authorities.

This month, Yildirim lashed out at Google saying it owed Turkey 30 million Turkish Lira (US$20 million) in taxes for revenue from advertisements placed in Turkey.

Google said in an e-mailed statement that it is ‘disappointed that that this ban remains in place against a safe and lawful international service enjoyed by millions of people around the world.’

‘Google complies with tax law in every country in which it operates,’ Google said. ‘We are currently in discussion with the Turkish authorities about this, and are confident we comply with Turkish law. We report profits in Turkey which are appropriate for the activities of our Turkish operations.’

Erdogan has in the past shrugged off complaints over the YouTube ban. In 2008, he told a journalist: ‘I know how to get around the ban,’ and urged everyone else to do the same. He would not however, disclose which proxy servers he used to circumvent the ban.

Richard Howitt, a British member of the European Parliament and advocate of Turkey’s European Union membership, has warned Turkey that it cannot be considered as a serious candidate as long as the Internet continues to be censored.

Howitt said the ban puts ‘the country alongside Iran, North Korea and Vietnam as one of the world’s worst offenders for cyber censorship.’

The 56-nation Vienna-based security and human rights organization has also called on Turkey to abolish or reform the law that allows it to block Internet sites.

More than 6,000 sites have been banned in Turkey according to Engelli Web, a site that monitors blocked pages.

Inaccessible sites include pornographic pages, some online betting sites, escort services and sites that provide live soccer feeds.