Turkish Press Scanner – Turkish Daily News May 27, 2008: ” Turkey one of 13 to ban YouTube – Vatan

Google and Reporters Without Borders, or RWB, have responded to court decisions that ban access to YouTube in Turkey, daily Vatan reported yesterday.

YouTube has only been banned in 13 countries around the globe and they are Brazil, Indonesia, Armenia, Morocco, Thailand, Pakistan, Iran, United Arab Emirates, China, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Turkish Internet users have been unable to access the world’s largest video sharing Web site YouTube in the past month, due to consecutive court orders. Access to YouTube was barred first on April 24, then on April 30, and lastly on May 5. In a statement last week, RWB declared this situation ‘unacceptable.’ The organization’s statement read that authorities would close down the whole site because of a few videos they find ‘shocking.’ It added, ‘Article 5651 that grants prosecutors the right to close any Web site that insults Atatürk or incites drug use, pedophilia, suicide, or prostitution in 24 hours, is being abused. We ask authorities to explain their reasons for the ban.’ During a speech on freedom of expression on the Internet, YouTube’s parent company Google’s Deputy Legal Counselor Nicole Wang said even though they have been in contact with Turkish authorities in the past couple of months, they have had a difficult time finding out even which videos were the cause of complaints. “