More than 50 NGOs have joined together to fight against government interference in the Internet. They have articulated and drafter a "Common Platform Against Internet Censorship" ( http://www.sansursuzinternet.org.tr)
Ozgur Uckan made a compelling power point presentation on how this works in a country that has a large and active presence of web users.
It points out that As a right, freedom of expression is recognized and protected by the Turkish Constitution through Article 26,1 and comprehensive human rights treaties to which Turkey is a party, but "Turkey has been found in breach of Article 10 of the ECHR by the European Court of Human Rights several times.
Censorship is being sold as a way to promote public safety:
This time, the expressions "black list" and "white list" used for the sites inaccessible by families and accessible by children respectively have been removed. The expression "mandatory filtering done by the State" has been softened and it is presented, as it did not exist. The word "filter" which was one of the main concepts in the previous decision has been filtered and replaced with "list".
Censorship is "imposed on the Internet users in Turkey is being legitimized under the pretext of "Safe Internet Service". The public is misled with the expression "Safe Internet Service".
This pretence has been, this report documents used to massively interfere in the free dissemination of Internet content. In many cases, it's not just the government that is behnd this but the Courts which are in the midst of a protracted and ineffective judicial reform.
"Since then, access to approximately 3700 websites have been blocked under Law No. 5651 by December 2009, and access to a considerable number of foreign websites including popular websites such as You Tube, Geocities, Daily Motion, Goggle Sites, and Farmville have been blocked from Turkey under the provisions of this law by court orders and administrative blocking orders issued by the TIB.
Similarly, websites in Turkish, or addressing Turkey related issues, especially news sites dealing with south-eastern Turkey such as �zgur Gundem, Keditör, and Gunluk Gazetesi, as well as gabile.com and hadigayri.com which in combination form the largest online gay community in Turkey with approximately 225,000 users have been subjected to blocking orders since Law No. 5651 came into force.
Furthermore, access to popular web 2.0 based services such as myspace.com, Last.fm, and Justin.tv have been blocked by courts and Public Prosecutors ' Office with regards to intellectual property infringements subject to the Supplemental Article 4 of the Law No. 5846 on Intellectual & Artistic Works."
Much of this is rationalized in the name of protecting against obscenity:
Lest I be accused of hypocrisy as an American criticizing Turkey, there's this latest disturbing development that cannot be ignored.
CLG reports, "The US Government says the threat of cyber attacks is real and has now vowed to target threats more aggressively. The administration is asking for updates to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act so that cyber crimes can be investigated and prosecuted as organized crime.
The White House wants to take the punishment of cyber crime to unprecedented levels. Under the proposed law, hackers who endanger national security would be put in prison for up to 20 years. The proposal would also double current prison times and increase fines in each category of computer crimes.
Clearly, defending the Internet is a global challenge involving governments, and large companies that often do their bidding. Insuring Internet freedom is not a symbolic issue.
News Dissector Danny Schechter writes the newsdissector.com blog, and has been involved with Internet issues since l986. He also writes regularly for the Al Jazeera English website and hosts a radio show on Progressiveradionetwork.com
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