Turkey is coming under increasing criticism for its internet laws, which critics say make it too easy for websites to be blocked or banned. (See this RFE/RL article for more details.) YouTube is only the most famous of numerous websites currently blocked in Turkey for a variety of reasons. In a recent case, the deputy governor of Turkey's southeastern Sanliurfa region was able to get a court to block a local news site after he complained about some critical online comments made about him.
Have Turkish internet users had enough? Well, at least some of them have. On Saturday, some 2,000 protesters marched in Istanbul in the name of internet freedom. From the Hurriyet Daily News's report:
The march on İstiklal Avenue in Istanbul on Saturday attracted several hundreds of people from various Internet groups, nongovernmental organizations and Internet platforms such as many popular Turkish websites, including sourtimes.org, zaytung.com and bobiler.org, the Young Civilians, Penguen magazine, “Sansüre Sansür” (Censor Censorship) and “Sansüre Karşı Ortak Platform” (Joint Platform against Censorship). The group gathered at Taksim Square at 5 p.m. and marched to Galatasaray Square holding large banners reading “Censorship-free Internet,” “Do not click on our freedom,” and “Censorship protects you from the truth.” Demonstrators also had whistles, portable music systems and tambourines.The joint press declaration read at Galatasaray Square protested Law No. 5651, which has resulted in access to more than 5,000 Internet sites being blocked in Turkey. The protesters demanded that the law be repealed and access to the sites affected by the law be re-established. An additional 500 websites are banned by various other laws and the protesters demanded that Turkish Internet users be allowed to access them as well.
“The Internet is the good news of a full attentive utopia of democracy being possible without a hierarchy,” the statement read. “We, as Internet users, do not accept laws that do not fit the Information Age. We know that the recent Internet policies followed by government institutions is censorship.”
The demonstrators demanded an unrestricted Internet from the government in the name of the freedom of speech and the right to obtain information.
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