Friday, March 09, 2007

Turkey bans YouTube after Atatürk insulted

A court in Turkey has banned national access to YouTube following claims that a Greek video blogger had uploaded a video calling national icon Kemal Atatürk a "faggot".

Lest anyone forget, criticism of Atatürk is outlawed in Turkey as part of an infamous provision in the Turkish penal code that outlaws "insulting Turkishness". This law also bars any ugly speculation that Turkey had any role in the deaths of a whole lot of Armenians, but insulting Atatürk is considered an even more unthinkable thoughtcrime in a nation that was remade in Atatürk's image.

YouTube, as is their wont, completely caved in and removed the offending video, leaving the rest of us to wonder why the rest of the world is supposed to get upset about a Greek insulting a dead Turkish leader. Obviously, there's still some lingering bad blood between Greece and Turkey, but caving into Turkey, while commercially understandable, is somewhat ridiculous. On a website where you can find thousands of foreigners insulting leaders from George Bush to, well, George Bush, only Turkey so admires their former dictator by outlawing criticism of him completely.

Sure, there are plenty of countries where insulting the current dictator is illegal, but even Saparmurat Niyazov allowed criticism of former Soviet leaders. Does Turkey, a nation aspiring to European Union membership, really imagine that they can keep these archaic laws alive and join the EU? If he were alive today, it would seem likely that Atatürk, ever forward looking, would urge his countrymen to scrap the silly laws protecting the honor of a dead man to move Turkey to the next stage of history.

In the meantime, though, would anyone care to make a video blog calling Mao Zedong a pederast to see if China blocks YouTube?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

here here! or ıs ıt hear hear?

Anonymous said...

I am Turkish and I want to say something. You think ataturk is dictator but I do not agree. He is not dictator, he was a great leader and he is hero for us. Therefore, youtube which show videos that include gay dictator for ataturk should be baned certainly. They are not respectful and the videos are ridiculous.

Anonymous said...

I am turkish as well, but I feel that you should not restrict people of expressing themselves. In turkey there is an image of ataturk which the state is the "protector" of. But it also tries to pose this ideology on others, others which might have different opinion about this so called great leader. In turkey either you have to love ataturk or you might as well die, it is so ridiculous, they force you to think like themselves and they brainwash the public through education and media. It is very similar to North-Korea. I do not agree with ataturks ideas at all. In my opinion the Ottoman past of the nation of turkey is the glory days, since then the ideology of ataturk has somewhat destroyed the true ideology of the nation and its multi-national population. We now live under nationalist-ideloligacal dictatorship, where the dictator is oppressing beyond the grave.

Anonymous said...

http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.culture.indian/2005-08/msg00189.html

Anonymous said...

Kutsal insanlara hakaret edenlere cavabını verin!!..
youtube yorum yapmak için 2 açık bilet:


Username: yuutubagirerim
Password: youtube789


Username: varyedirmez
Password: 198000

* * * * * *

kendiniz üye olup yorum yapmak için:
http://www.youtube.com/create_account
.

yasaklı YOUTUBE giriş için:

birkaçtane dns numarası isteyen için:
12.106.254.36
12.106.254.37
12.109.193.94
12.11.148.232
12.11.148.233
12.11.224.133
12.119.93.74
12.120.120.161
12.120.120.164
12.120.120.167
12.120.120.170
12.120.120.182

youtube giremeyenler için, aşağıdakilerde proksi adresleri buraya girdikten sonra youtube nin adresini yazın you tube ye girin:
http://www.proxylord.com/tube/index.php
http://3hardatstudy.info/
http://www.proxygizlen.com/
http://www.youproxyz.com/
https://proxify.co.uk/
http://www.proxylicious.net/
http://hidemyass.com/proxy/
http://proxy.tc/

Unknown said...

Well said my friend. Even if I'm a turk I'm agree with you. well, "even if" was a funny conjunction to use there, because I think that all turks doesn't have to protect him. Kemalists always deify him by saying that he was a holy person and he couldn't be wrong about all things that he did.Like you said he was a dictator, he had absolute power in his hands. He ruled turkey from 1923 to 1938, in other words until he dies. In this period, turkey is ruled by ataturk's party CHP which consists of deputies that was chosen by ataturk not chosen by people. Of course, there were two opposition parties, Terrakki perver republic party whose leader was Kazım Pasha(A true patriot) and free republic party whose leader was Ali fuat. Terraki perver was founded in 1924 and was closed in 1925 due to Seyh Said Uprising. Seyh said was fighting for islam. After his uprising, Ataturk and his party enacted Tahkir'i sükun which forbids opposite ideas to republic and his reforms (many newspapers were banned in this period) Also in 1925, he declared "Hat Reform" which is so stupid and funny, many people who refused to wear a hat were tried and executed in liberty courts. In 1937, he ordered dersim slaughter. In dersim, approximately 50000-70000 people killed.In our so called official history, this slaughter is known as dersim uprising.In 1931, he founded Turkish History Foundation in which all historical events, even islam history, were written and accepted so called "facts" by kemalists and ataturk examined their works whether approved or not approved these so called "facts". well these are the some facts that are enough to declare him as a dictator. Some people call me as a traitor, but we, I mean turkish people, need to face with these facts. Also, I'm proud of turkish flag and today's turkey which is more democratic.