Davey Winder
Monday, 18 August 2008 18:06
Business IT -
Networking
Page 2 of 3
This hugely controversial law makes it illegal to insult
the Turkish nation, Turkish ethnicity or Turkish government
institutions. I guess you could say that the Turkish authorities do not
take criticism that well.
Recent reforms to Article 301, which took effect
on April 30th this year and were brought about largely as part of the
negotiating process for Turkey to get membership of the European Union,
appear to have made little real difference.
Indeed, it seems that some wording was altered so that 'Turkishness'
was replaced by 'Turkish nation' when talking about insults. The
maximum prison term for the guilty masses was reduced by a year as well.
Perhaps the most important amendment would be that which requires the
permission of the Turkish Justice Minister in order for a case to be
filed under Article 301. Although
some insist that it
remains particularly easy for websites to be banned.
The problem being that another law was passed in 2007, the snappily
entitled Law 5651, which was aimed squarely at regulating web sites. By
which it really means censoring those which do not toe the party line,
as it were.
Take Article 8 of that law, which the World Socialist Web Site explains
can have content blocked if it violates a law passed in 1951 that deals
with crimes against Ataturk. The WSWS also maintains that there are 900
courts which are able to ban sites based on nothing more than
complaints from individuals.
Why is a ban under Law 5651 so problematical, especially for sites which are operated by people outside of Turkey itself? Find out on page 3...
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