{"id":54042,"date":"2014-01-17T13:47:37","date_gmt":"2014-01-17T13:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=54042"},"modified":"2019-09-16T13:40:20","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T12:40:20","slug":"turkeys-new-internet-law-said","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=54042","title":{"rendered":"Turkey’s proposed internet law met with strong opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Turkish

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Photo: Philip Janek \/ Demotix)<\/p><\/div>\n

Turkish authorities have this week come under severe criticism for their proposed amendments to the country’s internet law, which among other things, would effectively allow the government to block websites.<\/p>\n

The changes, tabled by the Family and Social Policy Ministry of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, “would give the transport and communication minister the power to block websites deemed to infringe privacy, as well as compelling internet service providers to retain information of their customers\u2019 movements on the net,” reports The Financial Times<\/a>. “The measure, attached to an omnibus bill, increasing its chances of passage, would also require ISPs to restrict access to proxy sites, which can allow users to circumvent censorship,” it added.<\/p>\n

DW reports that<\/a>\u00a0“the director of Turkey’s internet regulatory agency would be allowed to act immediately and unilaterally “in case of emergency”. After 48 hours, those decisions would theoretically have to be approved by a judge.” It also states that “under the new law, the government would also be allowed to block individual URLs instead of entire websites” — meaning they could technically block individual social media profiles — and that\u00a0ISPs would be forced “to join a state-controlled association in order to continue doing business”.<\/p>\n

The move comes after<\/a>\u00a0a high-profile corruption scandal which has implicated parts of the country’s political elite, and as the government is also trying to increase its power over the judicial branch. However, it is also believed to be part of an ongoing crackdown on internet freedom, and connected to the widespread use of social media during the anti-government Gezi Park protests last summer.<\/p>\n

“According to Google\u2019s most recent\u00a0transparency report<\/a>, the Turkish government requested the removal of 9,610 items from the internet in the first half of 2013, the most in the world and about three times as many as the United States, which had the second-most,” writes Slate<\/a>.\u00a0“Google complied with only 13 percent of Turkey\u2019s requests, which included \u201ca court order to remove any search results linking to information about a political official and sex scandal,\u201d \u201ca Google+ profile picture showing a map of Kurdistan,\u201d and \u201c17 YouTube videos and 109 blog posts that contained content critical of Ataturk.\u201d YouTube was\u00a0blocked entirely<\/a>\u00a0over videos deemed insulting to Ataturk in March.”<\/p>\n

Only last Friday, video sharing site Vimeo was blocked. “The blocking of Vimeo came after protesters frequently used the website to share videos covering the nation-wide anti-government demonstrations during month-long Gezi protests in last summer,” writes Cihan<\/a>. “The move is seen by many people as silencing internet tools to prevent dissidents and citizen journalists from sharing video footage regarding any social and political activity,” they add.<\/p>\n

The proposal has been met with high-level opposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe law, which results in limiting the individual\u2019s fundamental rights and freedoms, has also been subject to a \u2018rights violation\u2019 ruling of the European Court of Human Rights,\u201dthe Turkish Industry and Business Association (T\u00dcS\u0130AD) said in a statement, reported by\u00a0Hurriyet Daily News<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cIn such a situation, the planned amendments to the law are concerning and will increase censorship on the internet. The draft should be cleared of articles that could harm the fundamental rights and freedoms and the internet economy that is growing every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The head of the Turkish Informatics Foundation (TBV),\u00a0Faruk Eczacibasi has also spoken out:\u00a0\u201cWe have been saying since 2007, when this law came into force, that it would harm our country\u2019s chances of becoming a society based on knowledge. In 2012, the European Court of Human Rights also ruled that this law violated the freedom of expression\u00a0as well as other human rights,\u201d reports Al-Monitor<\/a>, adding that\u00a0\u201cat a time when we continue to call for these mistakes to be corrected, and for human rights to be respect while monitoring the internet, we regret to see the exact opposite happening\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, the government has hit back. \u201cWith the new legal arrangement, we intend to protect individual rights. Let\u2019s say one of our citizens has become a victim [of a privacy breach]. He won\u2019t have to wait for an answer from the provider of the content. He can directly apply to the court for it,\u201d said Transport and Communication Minister L\u00fctfi Elvan, reports Turkish Weekly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis legal arrangement is by no means a regulation that brings censorship. It is one that helps [Turkey] to reach the standards of developed countries and makes the present law more functional.\u201d<\/p>\n

But lawyer Serhat Ko\u00e7, a spokesperson for the Pirate Party of Turkey\u00a0told bianet<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cIf the draft will be implemented, the life will harder for internet users in Turkey. Censors on citizen journalism, scientific research and social media will be a routine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Controversy surrounds proposed amendments to a 2007 law, which would give the government wide ranging power over the internet <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":259,"featured_media":54045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4883,581,55],"tags":[4799,6029,64,1853,7355],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54042"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54042"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109337,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54042\/revisions\/109337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}