Censorship in Turkey
Encyclopedia
Censorship in Turkey
is largely focused on "insults to Turkishness" and expressions of political extremism
. Censorship in Turkey is regulated by domestic and international legislation, which takes precedence over domestic law according to Article 90 ("Ratification of International Treaties") of the Constitution following its amendment in 2004. Turkey, however, ranked 138 in Reporters Without Borders
' 2010 Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index. In the frame of negotiations with the European Union (EU), the EU has requested Turkey to issue various legal reforms in order to improve freedom of expression and of press.
The two main issues about censorship in Turkey relates to mentioning the Armenian Genocide
and the criticizing of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
— both are considered crimes punishable with (sometimes long) prison sentences.
. On 15 February 1857 a law on printing houses ("Basmahane Nizamnamesi") was passed that provided that books first had to be shown to the governor, who forwarded them to commission for education ("Maarif Meclisi") and the police. If they had no objection the Sultanate would inspect them. Without permission from the sultan books would be illegal. On 24 July 1908, at the beginning of the Second Constitutional Era
it was announced that censorship had been lifted. However, soon after that the law on printing houses provided that newspapers publishing stories that could endanger interior or exterior security of the State would be closed. Between 1909 and 1913 four journalists were killed Hasan Fehmi, Ahmet Samim, Zeki Bey and Hasan Tahsin (Silahçı).
Following the success of the Turkish War of Independence
the new was established. Under the pretext of the Sheikh Said rebellion martial law ("Takrir-i Sükun Yasası") was announced on 4 March 1925. This resulted in renewed censorship on newspapers. Papers such as Tevhid-i Efkar, Sebül Reşat, Aydınlık, Resimli Ay, Vatan and local papers were closed down and several journalists were arrested and tried at Independence Courts.
During World War II
(1939–1945) many newspapers were ordered to shut down. They include the dailies Cumhuriyet (5 times for 5 months and 9 days), Tan (7 times for 2 months and 13 days), Vatan (9 time for 7 months and 24 day).
When the Democratic Party under Adnan Menderes
came to power in 1950 censorship ender a new phase. First the Press Law was changed and sentences and fines were increased. Several newspapers were closed down including the dailies Ulus (unlimited ban), Hürriyet, Tercüman and Hergün (two weeks each). In April 1960 a so called investigation commission "Tahkikat Komisyonu" was established in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. It was given the power to confiscate publications, close papers and printing houses. Anyone not following the decisions of the commission could be punished to imprisonment between one and three years.
Freedom of speech was heavily restricted after the 1980 military coup headed by General Kenan Evren
. Today, although Turkish media are very free(is it irony?) and frequently include strong criticisms of the government and of the state, three topics remained difficult to approach in public: secularism
, minority rights (in particular the Kurdish issue
) and the role of military in politics.
Article 8 of the Anti-Terror Law (Law 3713), slightly amended in 1995 and later repealed, imposed three-year prison sentences for "separatist propaganda." Despite its name, the Anti-Terror Law punished many non-violent offences. Pacifist
s have been imprisoned under Article 8. For example, publisher Fatih Tas was prosecuted in 2002 under Article 8 at Istanbul State Security Court for translating and publishing writings by Noam Chomsky
, summarizing the history of human rights violations in southeast Turkey; he was acquitted, however, in February 2002. Prominent female publisher Ayse Nur Zarakolu
, who was described by the New York Times as "[o]ne of the most relentless challengers to Turkey's press laws", was imprisoned under Article 8 four times.
, signed by Turkey in 2000. Many Turkish citizens convicted under the laws mentioned below have applied to the European Court of Human Rights
(ECHR) and won their cases.
Beside the Article 301
, amended in 2008, more than 300 provisions constrained freedom of expression, religion, and association, according to the Turkish Human Rights Association (2002). Many of the repressive provisions found in the Press Law, the Political Parties Law, the Trade Union Law, the Law on Associations, and other legislation were imposed by the military junta after its coup in 1980.
Article 312 of the criminal code imposes three-year prison sentences for incitement to commit an offence and incitement to religious or racial hatred
. In 1999 the mayor of Istanbul and current prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
was sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment under Article 312 for reading a few lines from a poem that had been authorized by the Ministry of Education for use in schools, and consequently had to resign. In 2000 the chairman of the Human Rights Association
, Akin Birdal, was imprisoned under Article 312 for a speech in which he called for "peace and understanding" between Kurds and Turks, and thereafter forced to resign, as the Law on Associations forbids persons who breach this and several other laws from serving as association officials. On February 6, 2002, a "mini-democracy package" was voted by Parliament, altering wording of Art. 312. Under the revised text, incitement can only be punished if it presents "a possible threat to public order." The package also reduced the prison sentences for Article 159 of the criminal code from a maximum of six years to three years. None of the other laws had been amended or repealed as of 2002.
Article 81 of the Political Parties Law (imposed by the military junta in 1982) forbids parties from using any language other than Turkish in their written material or at any formal or public meetings. This law is strictly enforced. Kurdish deputy Leyla Zana
was jailed in 1994, ostensibly for membership to the PKK.
Constitutional amendments adopted in October 2001 removed mention of "language forbidden by law" from legal provisions concerning free expression. Thereafter, university students began a campaign for optional courses in Kurdish to be put on the university curriculum, triggering more than 1,000 detentions throughout Turkey during December and January 2002. Actions have also been taken against the Laz
minority. According to the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne
, Turkey only recognizes the language rights of the Jewish, Greek and Armenian minorities. The government ignores Article 39(4) of the Treaty of Lausanne, which states that: "[n]o restrictions shall be imposed on the free use by any Turkish national of any language in private intercourse, in commerce, religion, in the press or in publications of any kind or at public meetings."
In 1991, laws outlawing communist (Articles 141 and 142 of the criminal code) and Islamic fundamentalist ideas (Article 163 of the criminal code) were repealed. This package of legal changes substantially freed up expression of leftist thought, but simultaneously created a new offence of "separatist propaganda" under Article 8 of the Anti-Terror Law. Prosecutors also began to use Article 312 of the criminal code (on religious or racial hatred) in place of Article 163.
Pressured by the EU, Turkey has promised to review the Broadcasting Law. State agency RTÜK
continues to impose a large number of closure orders on TV and radio stations on the grounds that they have made separatist broadcasts. In August 2001, RTÜK banned the BBC
World Service and the Deutsche Welle
on the grounds that their broadcasts "threatened national security." A ban on broadcasting in Kurdish
was lifted with certain qualifications in 2001 and 2002. Other legal changes in August 2002 allowed for the teaching of languages, including Kurdish. However, limitations on Kurdish broadcasting continue to be strong: according to the EU Commission (2006), "time restrictions apply, with the exception of films and music programmes. All broadcasts, except songs, must be subtitled or translated in Turkish, which makes live broadcasts technically cumbersome. Educational programmes teaching the Kurdish language are not allowed. The Turkish Public Television (TRT) has continued broadcasting in five languages including Kurdish. However, the duration and scope of TRT's national broadcasts in five languages is very limited. No private broadcaster at national level has applied for broadcasting in languages other than Turkish since the enactment of the 2004 legislation." TRT broadcasts in Kurdish (as well as in Arab
and Circassian
dialect) are symbolic, compared to satellite broadcasts by channels such as controversial Roj TV
, based in Denmark
.
is a law, which between June 2005 and April 2008 made it a punishable offense to insult Turkishness. Before the Article was amended, charges were brought in more than 60 cases, some of which are high-profile.
Orhan Pamuk
is a famous writer have been prosecuted under Article 301 for discussing the Armenian Genocide
. He was a Nobel Prize candidate at the time, and he won the prize just after his speech. Perihan Mağden
, a columnist for the newspaper Radikal
, was tried and acquitted on July 27, 2006 for provoking people under the article calling for opening the possibility of conscientious objection to mandatory military service
in that country the human rights abuses associated with conscription.
In December 2010 the OpenNet Initiative
, a non-partisan organization based in Canada and the United States that investigates, analyzes, and exposes Internet filtering and surveillance practices, classified Internet censorship in Turkey as selective (third lowest of four classifications) in the political, social, and Internet tools areas and found no evidence of censorship in the conflict/security area.
Reporters Without Borders
, an international censorship watchdog organization, included Turkey on its 2011 list of 16 countries "under surveillance" (the less serious of two Internet censorship lists that it maintains), saying:
Beside the older media control and censorship association, RTÜK
, a new governmental association, Telecommunication and Transmission Authority, can impose bans on Internet sites without prior judicial approval, (i) if the offending Web site hosts content that is illegal under Turkish law and is hosted outside Turkey, or (ii) a Web site contains sexual abuse of children or obscenity and its host resides in Turkey. The law prohibits:
Web sites are also blocked for the following reasons:
The Turkish Telecommute Foundation has a website for public reports. Decisions to block a web site can be appealed, but usually only after a site has been blocked. Nevertheless, due to the public profile of the major websites banned and the lack of juridical, technical, or ethical arguments to justify the censorship, the blocked sites are often available using proxies
or by changing DNS
servers.
, an investigative
magazine which has since been closed because of military pressures, were searched by police in April 2007, following the publication of articles examining alleged links between the Office of the Chief of Staff and some NGOs, and questioning the military's connection to officially civilian anti-government rallies. The magazine also gave details on military blacklistings of journalists, ad well as two plans for a military coup, by retired generals, aiming to overthrow the AK Party
government in 2004. Nokta had also revealed military accreditations for press organs, deciding to whom the military should provide information.
Alper Görmüş, editor of Nokta, was charged with insult and libel (under articles 267 and 125 of the Turkish Penal Code, TPC), and faced a possible prison sentence of over six years, for publishing the excerpts of the alleged journal of Naval Commander Örnek in the magazine’s March 29, 2007 issue. Nokta journalist Ahmet Şık and defense expert journalist Lale Sarıibrahimoğlu were also indicted on May 7, 2007 under Article 301 for “insulting the armed forces” in connection with an interview Şık conducted with Sarıibrahimoğlu.
, citing the show's violent themes. The TV show inspired a Turkish-made movie by the same name, which included American actor Gary Busey. Busey played an American doctor who removed organs from Iraqi prisoners at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison and sold the harvested organs on the black market. The movie was pulled from theaters in the United States after the Anti-Defamation League complained to the Turkish ambassador to the U.S. about the movie's portrayal of Jews.
as a dog being given a rosette by President Bush
— and told him he would be prosecuted. Charles Thomson
, leader of the Stuckism
movement, of which Dickinson is a member, wrote to then UK prime minister, Tony Blair
in protest. The Times
commented: "The case could greatly embarrass Turkey and Britain, for it raises questions about Turkey’s human rights record as it seeks EU membership, with Tony Blair’s backing." The prosecutor declined to present a case, until Dickinson then displayed another similar collage outside the court. He was then held for ten days and told he would be prosecuted for "insulting the Prime Minister's dignity". In September 2008, he was acquitted, the judge ruling that "insulting elements" were "within the limits of criticism". Dickinson said, "I am lucky to be acquitted. There are still artists in Turkey facing prosecution and being sentenced for their opinions."
, was charged with divulging secret military information, under Article 336 of the Turkish Criminal Code. He was accused of having published an article in October 2008 that alleged police and military had been warned of an imminent PKK attack that same month, an attack which resulted in the death of 13 soldiers. Demir faces up to 5 years of prison. On 29 December 2009 İstanbul Heavy Penal Court No. 13 acquitted Adnan Demir.
’s Turkish Union Association motivated suspension of an advertisement campaign by Media Markt
that the group claimed “insult Turkishness” by depicting consumers with animal heads goose -a cow, a carp and a sheep, each chosen for its implication of foolishness- that purchased overpriced merchandise. In the advertisements they used such sentences "am i sheep?" "am i bird-brained?" ("bird-brained" is a common insult in Turkish).
What happened in Eskişehir is far from Media Markt’s first advertising scandal. In 2006, the company ran commercials in Poland that referenced the German stereotype of Polish people as thieves, which caused a public outcry and forced the company to apologize. Similarly, a 2008 campaign in Portugal that depicted a boy scout as an idiot prompted a petition for the removal of the ad. The company’s main slogan, “I am not an idiot,” is also provocative. The slogan, which is translated as “fool” or “crazy” outside Germany, does not run in Turkey.”
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
is largely focused on "insults to Turkishness" and expressions of political extremism
Extremism
Extremism is any ideology or political act far outside the perceived political center of a society; or otherwise claimed to violate common moral standards...
. Censorship in Turkey is regulated by domestic and international legislation, which takes precedence over domestic law according to Article 90 ("Ratification of International Treaties") of the Constitution following its amendment in 2004. Turkey, however, ranked 138 in Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders is a France-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985, by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Jean-François Julliard has served as Secretary General since 2008...
' 2010 Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index. In the frame of negotiations with the European Union (EU), the EU has requested Turkey to issue various legal reforms in order to improve freedom of expression and of press.
The two main issues about censorship in Turkey relates to mentioning the Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
and the criticizing of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was an Ottoman and Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, writer, and the first President of Turkey. He is credited with being the founder of the Republic of Turkey....
— both are considered crimes punishable with (sometimes long) prison sentences.
History
Censorship in Turkey goes back to the Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. On 15 February 1857 a law on printing houses ("Basmahane Nizamnamesi") was passed that provided that books first had to be shown to the governor, who forwarded them to commission for education ("Maarif Meclisi") and the police. If they had no objection the Sultanate would inspect them. Without permission from the sultan books would be illegal. On 24 July 1908, at the beginning of the Second Constitutional Era
Second Constitutional Era (Ottoman Empire)
The Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire began shortly after Sultan Abdülhamid II restored the constitutional monarchy after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. The period established many political groups...
it was announced that censorship had been lifted. However, soon after that the law on printing houses provided that newspapers publishing stories that could endanger interior or exterior security of the State would be closed. Between 1909 and 1913 four journalists were killed Hasan Fehmi, Ahmet Samim, Zeki Bey and Hasan Tahsin (Silahçı).
Following the success of the Turkish War of Independence
Turkish War of Independence
The Turkish War of Independence was a war of independence waged by Turkish nationalists against the Allies, after the country was partitioned by the Allies following the Ottoman Empire's defeat in World War I...
the new was established. Under the pretext of the Sheikh Said rebellion martial law ("Takrir-i Sükun Yasası") was announced on 4 March 1925. This resulted in renewed censorship on newspapers. Papers such as Tevhid-i Efkar, Sebül Reşat, Aydınlık, Resimli Ay, Vatan and local papers were closed down and several journalists were arrested and tried at Independence Courts.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
(1939–1945) many newspapers were ordered to shut down. They include the dailies Cumhuriyet (5 times for 5 months and 9 days), Tan (7 times for 2 months and 13 days), Vatan (9 time for 7 months and 24 day).
When the Democratic Party under Adnan Menderes
Adnan Menderes
Adnan Menderes was the first democratically elected Turkish Prime Minister between 1950–1960. He was one of the founders of the Democratic Party in 1946, the fourth legal opposition party of Turkey. He was hanged by the military junta after the 1960 coup d'état, along with two other cabinet...
came to power in 1950 censorship ender a new phase. First the Press Law was changed and sentences and fines were increased. Several newspapers were closed down including the dailies Ulus (unlimited ban), Hürriyet, Tercüman and Hergün (two weeks each). In April 1960 a so called investigation commission "Tahkikat Komisyonu" was established in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. It was given the power to confiscate publications, close papers and printing houses. Anyone not following the decisions of the commission could be punished to imprisonment between one and three years.
Freedom of speech was heavily restricted after the 1980 military coup headed by General Kenan Evren
Kenan Evren
Ahmet Kenan Evren was the seventh President of Turkey; a post he assumed by leading the 1980 military coup. He was also the last president to be born in the Ottoman Empire.- Biography :...
. Today, although Turkish media are very free(is it irony?) and frequently include strong criticisms of the government and of the state, three topics remained difficult to approach in public: secularism
Secularism in Turkey
Secularism in Turkey defines the relationship between religion and state in the country of Turkey. Secularism was first introduced with the 1928 amendment of the Constitution of 1924, which removed the provision declaring that the "Religion of the State is Islam", and with the later reforms of...
, minority rights (in particular the Kurdish issue
Kurds in Turkey
Ethnic Kurds compose a significant portion of the population in Turkey . Unlike the Turks, the Kurds speak an Indo-European language...
) and the role of military in politics.
Article 8 of the Anti-Terror Law (Law 3713), slightly amended in 1995 and later repealed, imposed three-year prison sentences for "separatist propaganda." Despite its name, the Anti-Terror Law punished many non-violent offences. Pacifist
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
s have been imprisoned under Article 8. For example, publisher Fatih Tas was prosecuted in 2002 under Article 8 at Istanbul State Security Court for translating and publishing writings by Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
, summarizing the history of human rights violations in southeast Turkey; he was acquitted, however, in February 2002. Prominent female publisher Ayse Nur Zarakolu
Ayse Nur Zarakolu
Ayşe Nur Zarakolu was a Turkish author, publisher and human rights advocate. She was co-founder, with her husband Ragıp Zarakolu, of notable Turkish publishing house Belge and in the 1980s became the director of book-distribution company Cemmay, the first woman in the nation to hold such a position...
, who was described by the New York Times as "[o]ne of the most relentless challengers to Turkey's press laws", was imprisoned under Article 8 four times.
Legislation
Expressions of non-violent opinion are safeguarded by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, ratified by Turkey in 1954, and various provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political RightsInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 16, 1966, and in force from March 23, 1976...
, signed by Turkey in 2000. Many Turkish citizens convicted under the laws mentioned below have applied to the European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
(ECHR) and won their cases.
Beside the Article 301
Article 301 (Turkish penal code)
Article 301 is a controversial article of the Turkish Penal Code making it illegal to insult Turkey, the Turkish ethnicity, or Turkish government institutions...
, amended in 2008, more than 300 provisions constrained freedom of expression, religion, and association, according to the Turkish Human Rights Association (2002). Many of the repressive provisions found in the Press Law, the Political Parties Law, the Trade Union Law, the Law on Associations, and other legislation were imposed by the military junta after its coup in 1980.
Article 312 of the criminal code imposes three-year prison sentences for incitement to commit an offence and incitement to religious or racial hatred
Hate speech
Hate speech is, outside the law, any communication that disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristic....
. In 1999 the mayor of Istanbul and current prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been Prime Minister of Turkey since 2003 and is chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party , which holds a majority of the seats in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Erdoğan served as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. He graduated in 1981 from Marmara...
was sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment under Article 312 for reading a few lines from a poem that had been authorized by the Ministry of Education for use in schools, and consequently had to resign. In 2000 the chairman of the Human Rights Association
Human Rights Association (Turkey)
The Human Rights Association is an NGO for advancing Human rights in Turkey, founded in 1986 and headquartered in Ankara.- History :...
, Akin Birdal, was imprisoned under Article 312 for a speech in which he called for "peace and understanding" between Kurds and Turks, and thereafter forced to resign, as the Law on Associations forbids persons who breach this and several other laws from serving as association officials. On February 6, 2002, a "mini-democracy package" was voted by Parliament, altering wording of Art. 312. Under the revised text, incitement can only be punished if it presents "a possible threat to public order." The package also reduced the prison sentences for Article 159 of the criminal code from a maximum of six years to three years. None of the other laws had been amended or repealed as of 2002.
Article 81 of the Political Parties Law (imposed by the military junta in 1982) forbids parties from using any language other than Turkish in their written material or at any formal or public meetings. This law is strictly enforced. Kurdish deputy Leyla Zana
Leyla Zana
Leyla Zana , is a Kurdish politician, who was imprisoned for 10 years for her political actions which were claimed to be against the unity of Turkey. When she was a member of pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, she was banned from joining any political party for five years with the Constitutional...
was jailed in 1994, ostensibly for membership to the PKK.
Constitutional amendments adopted in October 2001 removed mention of "language forbidden by law" from legal provisions concerning free expression. Thereafter, university students began a campaign for optional courses in Kurdish to be put on the university curriculum, triggering more than 1,000 detentions throughout Turkey during December and January 2002. Actions have also been taken against the Laz
Laz
Laz may refer to the Laz people, who live by the Black Sea, or to their language. As a given name, Laz may be a diminutive for Lazar, Lazarus, Lazaro, or Lazaros...
minority. According to the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne
Treaty of Lausanne
The Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland on 24 July 1923, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The treaty of Lausanne was ratified by the Greek government on 11 February 1924, by the Turkish government on 31...
, Turkey only recognizes the language rights of the Jewish, Greek and Armenian minorities. The government ignores Article 39(4) of the Treaty of Lausanne, which states that: "[n]o restrictions shall be imposed on the free use by any Turkish national of any language in private intercourse, in commerce, religion, in the press or in publications of any kind or at public meetings."
In 1991, laws outlawing communist (Articles 141 and 142 of the criminal code) and Islamic fundamentalist ideas (Article 163 of the criminal code) were repealed. This package of legal changes substantially freed up expression of leftist thought, but simultaneously created a new offence of "separatist propaganda" under Article 8 of the Anti-Terror Law. Prosecutors also began to use Article 312 of the criminal code (on religious or racial hatred) in place of Article 163.
Pressured by the EU, Turkey has promised to review the Broadcasting Law. State agency RTÜK
RTÜK
RTÜK is the Turkish state agency for monitoring, regulating, and sanctioning radio and television broadcasts. RTÜK was founded in 1994 and is composed of nine members elected by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey...
continues to impose a large number of closure orders on TV and radio stations on the grounds that they have made separatist broadcasts. In August 2001, RTÜK banned the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
World Service and the Deutsche Welle
Welle
Welle can refer to:*The German word for wave used by the Wehrmacht to designate groups of divisions recruited in a given period of time.*the river Wel in Poland*the former Roman Catholic missionary Prefecture Apostolic of Welle in Congo...
on the grounds that their broadcasts "threatened national security." A ban on broadcasting in Kurdish
Kurdish language
Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....
was lifted with certain qualifications in 2001 and 2002. Other legal changes in August 2002 allowed for the teaching of languages, including Kurdish. However, limitations on Kurdish broadcasting continue to be strong: according to the EU Commission (2006), "time restrictions apply, with the exception of films and music programmes. All broadcasts, except songs, must be subtitled or translated in Turkish, which makes live broadcasts technically cumbersome. Educational programmes teaching the Kurdish language are not allowed. The Turkish Public Television (TRT) has continued broadcasting in five languages including Kurdish. However, the duration and scope of TRT's national broadcasts in five languages is very limited. No private broadcaster at national level has applied for broadcasting in languages other than Turkish since the enactment of the 2004 legislation." TRT broadcasts in Kurdish (as well as in Arab
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
and Circassian
Northwest Caucasian languages
The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called Abkhazo-Adyghean, or sometimes Pontic as opposed to Caspian for the Northeast Caucasian languages, are a group of languages spoken in the Caucasus region, chiefly in Russia , the disputed territory of Abkhazia, and Turkey, with smaller communities...
dialect) are symbolic, compared to satellite broadcasts by channels such as controversial Roj TV
Roj TV
Roj TV is an international Kurdish satellite television station broadcasting programmes in the Kurmanji, Sorani and Hewrami dialects of the Kurdish language as well as in Zaza, Persian, Arabic, and Turkish.-Programming:...
, based in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
.
Article 301
Article 301Article 301 (Turkish penal code)
Article 301 is a controversial article of the Turkish Penal Code making it illegal to insult Turkey, the Turkish ethnicity, or Turkish government institutions...
is a law, which between June 2005 and April 2008 made it a punishable offense to insult Turkishness. Before the Article was amended, charges were brought in more than 60 cases, some of which are high-profile.
Orhan Pamuk
Orhan Pamuk
Ferit Orhan Pamuk , generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk, is a Turkish novelist. He is also the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches comparative literature and writing....
is a famous writer have been prosecuted under Article 301 for discussing the Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
. He was a Nobel Prize candidate at the time, and he won the prize just after his speech. Perihan Mağden
Perihan Magden
Perihan Mağden is a Turkish writer, known for her wit. She is currently a columnist for the newspaper Taraf. She was tried and acquitted for calling for opening the possibility of conscientious objection to mandatory military service in Turkey....
, a columnist for the newspaper Radikal
Radikal
Radikal is a daily Turkish language newspaper, published in Istanbul. It has been published since 1997 by Aydın Doğan's Doğan Media Group ....
, was tried and acquitted on July 27, 2006 for provoking people under the article calling for opening the possibility of conscientious objection to mandatory military service
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
in that country the human rights abuses associated with conscription.
Internet censorship
The Turkish government has implemented legal and institutional reforms driven by the country’s ambitions to become a European Union member state, while at the same time demonstrating its high sensitivity to defamation and other ‘‘inappropriate’’ online content, which has resulted in the closure of a number of local and international Web sites. All Internet traffic passes through Turk Telecom’s infrastructure, allowing centralized control over online content and facilitating the implementation of shutdown decisions.In December 2010 the OpenNet Initiative
OpenNet Initiative
The OpenNet Initiative is a joint project whose goal is to monitor and report on internet filtering and surveillance practices by nations. The project employs a number of technical means, as well as an international network of investigators, to determine the extent and nature of government-run...
, a non-partisan organization based in Canada and the United States that investigates, analyzes, and exposes Internet filtering and surveillance practices, classified Internet censorship in Turkey as selective (third lowest of four classifications) in the political, social, and Internet tools areas and found no evidence of censorship in the conflict/security area.
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders is a France-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985, by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Jean-François Julliard has served as Secretary General since 2008...
, an international censorship watchdog organization, included Turkey on its 2011 list of 16 countries "under surveillance" (the less serious of two Internet censorship lists that it maintains), saying:
- The year 2010 was marked by the widely covered deblocking of the video-sharing website YouTube which, unfortunately, did not equate to a lifting of online censorship in Turkey. In a country where taboo topics abound, several thousand websites are still inaccessible and legal proceedings against online journalists persist.
Laws
Crimes committed via the Internet are regulated by law number 5651.Beside the older media control and censorship association, RTÜK
RTÜK
RTÜK is the Turkish state agency for monitoring, regulating, and sanctioning radio and television broadcasts. RTÜK was founded in 1994 and is composed of nine members elected by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey...
, a new governmental association, Telecommunication and Transmission Authority, can impose bans on Internet sites without prior judicial approval, (i) if the offending Web site hosts content that is illegal under Turkish law and is hosted outside Turkey, or (ii) a Web site contains sexual abuse of children or obscenity and its host resides in Turkey. The law prohibits:
- crimes against Atatürk (Article 8/b),
- offering or promoting prostitution,
- providing place and opportunity for gambling,
- unauthorized online gambling and betting,
- sexual abuse of children,
- encouraging suicide,
- supplying drugs that are dangerous for health, and
- facilitation of the abuse of drugs.
Web sites are also blocked for the following reasons:
- downloading of MP3 and movies in violation of copyright laws,
- insults against state organs and private persons
- crimes related to terrorism
- violation of trademark regulations
- unfair trade regulated under the Turkish Commercial Code
- violation of Articles 24, 25, 26, and 28 of the Constitution (freedoms of religion, expression, thought, and freedom of press).
The Turkish Telecommute Foundation has a website for public reports. Decisions to block a web site can be appealed, but usually only after a site has been blocked. Nevertheless, due to the public profile of the major websites banned and the lack of juridical, technical, or ethical arguments to justify the censorship, the blocked sites are often available using proxies
Proxy server
In computer networks, a proxy server is a server that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers. A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some service, such as a file, connection, web page, or other resource available from a different server...
or by changing DNS
Domain name system
The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...
servers.
Blocking of Internet sites
- On 7 March 2007, Turkish courts imposed a ban on YouTube.com due to a speculative video that intentionally insulted Atatürk, a hero of WWI and the founder of modern Türkiye. Before the judgement, the court asked Youtube to remove the video completely, but they refused, saying they could only make it invisible for the Turkish people. a violation of article 8, dating back to 1951. Two days later the ban was briefly lifted, then reinstated.
- By August 2008 hundreds of sites are temporarily blocked on similar grounds. According to an August 2008 Milliyet article, 11494 complaints (mostly on grounds of indecency) have resulted in 853 motions to block.
- By mid-2008 growing discontent with the blocks resulted in a grass roots protest campaign organized by the Web site elmaaltshift.com, which encouraged Web sites to replace their home page with an interstitial webpageInterstitial webpageOn the World Wide Web, interstitials are web pages displayed before or after an expected content page, often to display advertisements or confirm the user's age. Most interstitial advertisements are delivered by an Ad server....
titled "Access To This Site Is Denied By Its Own Decision." - An October 2008 article in Radikal raised the number of blocked sites to 1112. Youtube's parent, Google, decided to selectively preventInternet filteringInternet filtering may refer to:* Content-control software* Internet censorship...
access to the offending videos to users in Turkey in order to prevent the entire site from being blocked. Turkish prosecutors, not content, demanded a global block in order not to offend Turkish users abroad. Google did not comply. - In September 2008, Richard DawkinsRichard DawkinsClinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
' site, richarddawkins.net, was banned in Turkey as a result of complaints by Islamic creationist Adnan OktarAdnan OktarAdnan Oktar , also known as Harun Yahya, is an author and Islamic creationist. In 2007, he sent thousands of unsolicited copies of the Atlas of Creation advocating Islamic creationism to American scientists, members of Congress, and science museums...
that his book Atlas of Creation, which contests the theory of evolution, had been defamed on Dawkins' website. - In October 2008 the Turkish Minister of TransportMinistry of Transport (Turkey)The Ministry of Transport and Communication is a government ministry office of the Republic of Turkey, responsible for transport, information and communication services in Turkey. Its head office is in Ankara...
Binali YıldırımBinali YildirimBinali Yıldırım is the current Minister of Transport of Turkey and a MP for Istanbul of the ruling Justice and Development Party.He was educated the Istanbul Technical University's School of Maritime...
defended the bans, saying “Practices are needed to protect young people and the public at large from harmful material online.” The newspaper TarafTaraf- External links :*. Website of Taraf ....
said that the persistent banning of Web sites can be attributed to judges inexperience in dealing with the Internet. - In October 2008, the courts banned the Blogger (service)Blogger (service)Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com. Up until May 1, 2010 Blogger allowed users to publish...
, including the Blogspot.com domain after Lig TV (whose parent company is DigiturkDigiturkDigiturk is a Turkish Satellite television provider, founded in 1999, with services starting in mid-2000. They offer, both national cable TV channels and their own channels, national radio, and music streams of different genres. Digiturk is also the current owner of the broadcasting rights of...
) complained of copyright violation.This ban was lifted after a few hours. - As of December 2008, after prime minister Recep Tayyip ErdoğanRecep Tayyip ErdoganRecep Tayyip Erdoğan has been Prime Minister of Turkey since 2003 and is chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party , which holds a majority of the seats in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Erdoğan served as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. He graduated in 1981 from Marmara...
encouraged people to work around the YouTube block, its number of visitors doubled making it the fifth-most visited Web site, according to Alexa.com. - As of June 2010, beside YouTube, more than 8000 major and minor websites were banned, most of them pornographic and mp3 sharing sites. Other prominent websites banned include YoupornYouPornYouPorn is a free pornographic video sharing website. Since starting in August 2006, it has become the most popular pornographic website. In November 2007, it was reported to be the largest free pornographic website on the Internet...
, The Pirate BayThe Pirate BayThe Pirate Bay is a Swedish website which hosts magnet links and .torrent files, which allow users to share electronic files, including multimedia, computer games and software via BitTorrent...
, MegauploadMegauploadMegaupload is an online Hong Kong-based company established in 2005 for the use of uploading and downloading files. It includes a video browsing section in the site Megavideo, MegaLive, MegaPix and Megabox as well as a sister company called Megaporn which hosts user uploaded pornographic content...
, DeezerDeezerDeezer is a free music streaming service based in Paris, France. Deezer was launched on August 24, 2007. Deezer has negotiated rights to make 165,000 songs available for streaming legally via an agreement with Sony, as well as some of Universal's catalog...
, Tagged, SlideSlide.comSlide, Inc., operator of the Slide.com website, is a Web 2.0 company founded by Max Levchin and based in San Francisco, California. Originally formed to make photo sharing software for social networking services such as MySpace, the company achieved its greatest success as the largest developer of...
and ShoutCastSHOUTcastSHOUTcast is cross-platform proprietary software for streaming media over the Internet. The software, developed by Nullsoft , allows digital audio content, primarily in MP3 or HE-AAC format, to be broadcast to and from media player software, enabling the creation of Internet radio "stations"...
. The Internet Movie Database has escaped being censored due to a misspelling of its domain, resulting in a futile ban on . - In 2010, the video sharing site MetacafeMetacafeMetacafe is a web site that specializes in short-form video entertainment in the categories of movies, video games, sports, music and TV.The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, London and Tel Aviv...
was banned by the Telecommunications Communication Presidency (TİB) of Turkey after the posting of an alleged scandalous video of the former CHPRepublican People's Party (Turkey)The Republican People's Party is a centre-left Kemalist political party in Turkey. It is the oldest political party of Turkey and is currently Main Opposition in the Grand National Assembly. The Republican People's Party describes itself as "a modern social-democratic party, which is faithful to...
leader Deniz BaykalDeniz BaykalDeniz Baykal is a Turkish politician. He was a long-time leader of the Republican People's Party .-Biography:...
. - During June 2010 Turkey's presidentPresident of TurkeyThe President of Turkey is the head of state of the Republic of Turkey. The presidency is largely a ceremonial office but has some important functions...
Abdullah GülAbdullah GülDr. Abdullah Gül, GCB is the 11th and current President of the Republic of Turkey, serving in that office since 28 August 2007. He previously served for four months as Prime Minister from 2002-03, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2003-07....
used his TwitterTwitterTwitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
account to express disapproval of the country's ban on YouTube and Google services. Gül said he had instructed officials to find legal ways of allowing access. - Between July 2010 and October 2010, Turkey's ban of YouTube was expanded to a range of IP addressIP addressAn Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
es offering services by YouTube's parent GoogleGoogleGoogle Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, including those of Google Docs, Google TranslateGoogle TranslateGoogle Translate is a free statistical machine translation service provided by Google Inc. to translate a section of text, document or webpage, into another language.The service was introduced in April 28, 2006 for the Arabic language...
, Google Books, Google AnalyticsGoogle AnalyticsGoogle Analytics is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. The product is aimed at marketers as opposed to webmasters and technologists from which the industry of web analytics originally grew. It is the most widely used website...
, and Google Tools. - Since September 2010, Kliptube has been blocked.
- In early September 2010, the online music search engine GroovesharkGroovesharkGrooveshark is an international online music search engine, music streaming service and music recommendation web software application, allowing users to search for, stream, and upload music that can be played immediately or added to a playlist...
was banned by Turkish courts due to copyright violations. - In October 2010, the ban of Youtube was lifted. But a range of IP addresses used by Google remained blocked, thus access to Google Apps hosted sites, including all Google App Engine powered sites and some of the Google services, remained blocked.
- On January 1, 2011, Turkish courts banned Wix.com, a popular site builder owned by an Israeli company.
- Beginning 2 March 2011 access to Blogspot was blocked, following a request by satellite television provider DigiturkDigiturkDigiturk is a Turkish Satellite television provider, founded in 1999, with services starting in mid-2000. They offer, both national cable TV channels and their own channels, national radio, and music streams of different genres. Digiturk is also the current owner of the broadcasting rights of...
; Digiturk alleged Blogger was being used to distribute material it holds the broadcast rights to. - On 27 May 2011, popular file sharing services Rapidshare.com and Fileserve.com were blocked.
- On 22 August 2011, under new regulations announced on 22 February 2011, the Information Technologies Board (BTK), an offshoot of the prime minister’s office, will require that all computers select one of four levels of content filtering (family, children, domestic, or standard) in order to gain access to the Internet.
- In Late November 2011, the media streaming service Livestream began being blocked by the Turkish Republic.
Nokta magazine
The headquarters of NoktaNokta
Nokta was a Turkish weekly political news magazine launched by Ercan Arıklı on 1 March 1982 as Nokta ve İnsanlar. A year later it became Nokta, and continued thus until 2007 when it was closed under military pressure....
, an investigative
Investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...
magazine which has since been closed because of military pressures, were searched by police in April 2007, following the publication of articles examining alleged links between the Office of the Chief of Staff and some NGOs, and questioning the military's connection to officially civilian anti-government rallies. The magazine also gave details on military blacklistings of journalists, ad well as two plans for a military coup, by retired generals, aiming to overthrow the AK Party
Justice and Development Party (Turkey)
The Justice and Development Party , abbreviated JDP in English and AK PARTİ or AKP in Turkish, is a centre-right political party in Turkey. The party is the largest in Turkey, with 327 members of parliament...
government in 2004. Nokta had also revealed military accreditations for press organs, deciding to whom the military should provide information.
Alper Görmüş, editor of Nokta, was charged with insult and libel (under articles 267 and 125 of the Turkish Penal Code, TPC), and faced a possible prison sentence of over six years, for publishing the excerpts of the alleged journal of Naval Commander Örnek in the magazine’s March 29, 2007 issue. Nokta journalist Ahmet Şık and defense expert journalist Lale Sarıibrahimoğlu were also indicted on May 7, 2007 under Article 301 for “insulting the armed forces” in connection with an interview Şık conducted with Sarıibrahimoğlu.
Valley of the Wolves: Terror
Early in 2007, the Turkish government banned a popular television series called Valley of the WolvesValley of the Wolves
Valley of the Wolves is a popular Turkish media franchise created by Osman Sınav, which has been very popular obtaining high ratings for the television series and one of the highest box office returns in the history of the Turkish cinema for the first movie.The franchise has also been very...
, citing the show's violent themes. The TV show inspired a Turkish-made movie by the same name, which included American actor Gary Busey. Busey played an American doctor who removed organs from Iraqi prisoners at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison and sold the harvested organs on the black market. The movie was pulled from theaters in the United States after the Anti-Defamation League complained to the Turkish ambassador to the U.S. about the movie's portrayal of Jews.
Michael Dickinson
In June 2006, police seized a collage by British artist Michael Dickinson — which showed the Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip ErdoğanRecep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been Prime Minister of Turkey since 2003 and is chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party , which holds a majority of the seats in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Erdoğan served as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. He graduated in 1981 from Marmara...
as a dog being given a rosette by President Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
— and told him he would be prosecuted. Charles Thomson
Charles Thomson (artist)
Charles Thomson is an English artist, painter, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art...
, leader of the Stuckism
Stuckism
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...
movement, of which Dickinson is a member, wrote to then UK prime minister, Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
in protest. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
commented: "The case could greatly embarrass Turkey and Britain, for it raises questions about Turkey’s human rights record as it seeks EU membership, with Tony Blair’s backing." The prosecutor declined to present a case, until Dickinson then displayed another similar collage outside the court. He was then held for ten days and told he would be prosecuted for "insulting the Prime Minister's dignity". In September 2008, he was acquitted, the judge ruling that "insulting elements" were "within the limits of criticism". Dickinson said, "I am lucky to be acquitted. There are still artists in Turkey facing prosecution and being sentenced for their opinions."
Editor of Taraf (2009)
In January 2009 Adnan Demir, editor of the provotical newspaper TarafTaraf
- External links :*. Website of Taraf ....
, was charged with divulging secret military information, under Article 336 of the Turkish Criminal Code. He was accused of having published an article in October 2008 that alleged police and military had been warned of an imminent PKK attack that same month, an attack which resulted in the death of 13 soldiers. Demir faces up to 5 years of prison. On 29 December 2009 İstanbul Heavy Penal Court No. 13 acquitted Adnan Demir.
Media Markt advertisement scandal in Eskişehir
EskişehirEskisehir
Eskişehir is a city in northwestern Turkey and the capital of the Eskişehir Province. According to the 2009 census, the population of the city is 631,905. The city is located on the banks of the Porsuk River, 792 m above sea level, where it overlooks the fertile Phrygian Valley. In the nearby...
’s Turkish Union Association motivated suspension of an advertisement campaign by Media Markt
Media Markt
Media Markt is a German chain of stores selling consumer electronics with numerous branches throughout Europe. It is Europe's largest retailer of consumer electronics.-History:...
that the group claimed “insult Turkishness” by depicting consumers with animal heads goose -a cow, a carp and a sheep, each chosen for its implication of foolishness- that purchased overpriced merchandise. In the advertisements they used such sentences "am i sheep?" "am i bird-brained?" ("bird-brained" is a common insult in Turkish).
What happened in Eskişehir is far from Media Markt’s first advertising scandal. In 2006, the company ran commercials in Poland that referenced the German stereotype of Polish people as thieves, which caused a public outcry and forced the company to apologize. Similarly, a 2008 campaign in Portugal that depicted a boy scout as an idiot prompted a petition for the removal of the ad. The company’s main slogan, “I am not an idiot,” is also provocative. The slogan, which is translated as “fool” or “crazy” outside Germany, does not run in Turkey.”
External links
- Censorship in Turkey, International Freedom of Expression ExchangeInternational Freedom of Expression ExchangeThe International Freedom of Expression eXchange , founded in 1992, is a global network of around 90 non-governmental organisations that promotes and defends the right to freedom of expression....
- Turkey Press Freedom Website covering the press freedom situation in Turkey by South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO)
- "Censorship to censorship" (Turkish) (English translation); A grassroots protest site
- Freedom of the Press in Turkey: The Sultan Likes His Press Meek, Qantara.de, 5 March 2009
- engelliweb.com (Disabled Web); lists 15,000+ banned websites in Turkey as of September 2011