[Blog entry by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz]

It is now been reported by a media news source that the Diyarbakir First Criminal Court of Peace has removed the blocking order it issued on 20.10.2008 (order no. 2008/2761) and executed on Friday, 24 October, 2008 with regards to Blogger.com and Blogspot. The DNS servers should be updated by end of today so currently users may still be unable to access the popular blogging sites.

It is, however, unclear why the order has been lifted and it seems like the ban is lifted until Digitürk provides to the court further evidence with regards to its claims for football streaming piracy. Therefore, I would not be surprised to see the blocking order and the ban reinstated.

A detailed assessment of the Turkish approaches to Internet content regulation will be provided in an 80 page long report entitled Restricted Access: A Critical Assessment of Internet Content Regulation and Censorship in Turkey written by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz and Dr. Kerem Altiparmak. This bi-lingual (English/Turkish) report will be published during November 2008 and will be made available as a PDF file through cyberlaw.org.uk and cyber-rights.org.tr pages.