WordPress blocked in Turkey
WordPress, a growing blog publishing system, has recently been blocked in Turkey. Founder and main developer Matt Mullenweg is asking for suggestions on ways to go about accessing WordPress within the country, after expressing his disappointment over this decision, which seems to be another strategy for Turkey to curb freedom of speech.
However, users in Turkey apparently don’t know the reason yet:
I’m a wordpress user/developer from Turkey and we are still in shock because of this. The weird thing is nobody knows the reason
I hope this is just a temporary prevention.
Unless it’s a “temporary” blockage, which is highly unlikely, it seems like a campaign is in order. When Morocco blocked YouTube, many bloggers joined forces in a successful campaign to unblock it. They won. When Bahrain blocked Google Earth, a lot of bloggers and journalists expressed their concerns and began targeting international media agencies about it, which caused the country to worry about its worldwide reputation. So I am hoping that Turkish bloggers and WP developers will be moved enough to do something effective in an attempt to unblock this important blogging platform which enables and empowers millions of people worldwide to express their opinions freely. This is a huge step backwards for Turkey. I consider this to be yet another reason why the country is unworthy of membership in the EU. Its human rights record disables the country from achieving any real progress.
Update: This appears to be a technical error, as suggested here. But Matt posted an entry in the WP community about why they’re still blocked.
Update II: Read what Ali Eteraz has to say about this.
Join the Conversation
EU membership for Turkey?
Sorry. Although that would be nice.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4940847710
FACEBOOK GROUP FOR THIS!
Thanks James. I joined. Let’s see if someone has an actual petition for this soon.
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It won’t last long. Just look at YouTube.
Did a bunch of Gay-reeks start calling Ataturk a homosexual again?
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James, Matt himself joined Facebook, how cool is that?
There is not a quick enough response from the Turkish community…
The Turkish community is as guilty about this as the Turkish court(s) that have issued this order without explanation.
Maybe freedoms of expressions do not exist in Turkey, except in cases where the silent stay silent, and the mighty have the right to choose.
Another embarrassment for Turkey!
Contrary to popular opinion, the ‘Islamist’ party, elected democratically, is the one pushing for greater reforms. Go figure!
http://wordpress.com/blog/2007/08/19/why-were-blocked-in-turkey/
http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-to-read-wordpresscom-blogs-in.html
(how to get around the block^)
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the only freedom here is freedom of submission
You guys may want to consider to digg this news, it has the highest diggs on this story, although many others were submitted, this has the best chance to make it to front page:
http://digg.com/world_news/Turkey_bans_Wordpress_blogs
Let’s get the rest of the world to know about this mess.
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Knowing a bit from the first hand experience with the Turkish judicial system and the bureaucracy , I blamed primarily the system in this ostensibly minor event turning into a saga. It appears now that there is enough blame to go around including possibly the WP which I held blameless so far (See A view on the matter from one of the victims: “WordPress banned in Turkey: a case of throwing the baby with the bath-water“)
Perusing through some of the comments on the matter in various sites, it appears that some of the commenters have an ax to grind with Adnan Oktar ( a.k.a. Harun Yahya) . They make his an issue of creationism versus evolutionism, which it should not be. The position Matt seems to be taking is that it is a free exchange of information in the internet , as parti of fundamental right of free speech.
This is certainly a view held by many including myself in principle. However the matter gets a bit thorny when you get into the limits, boundaries of the exercise of such right. That is why we have caseloads before the courts dealing with issues such as slander, defamation, libel, trademarks, copyrights and so on, -some of which are involved in this case. I am not going to attempt to sort out all the legal and moral issues and heir ramifications in this case. All I am trying o do is to invite all concerned to differentiate between personal dislike for a person, or opposition to his views on certain matters and justice.
I understand the predicament Matt and WP finds themselves in. They see the issue as an undemocratic justice system and an individual with strong arming the system to demand immunity from criticism. They are taking a stand on the side of the free speech. I urge them however to go beyond that reflexive behavior and engage in a bit deeper analysis of what Edip Yuksel is doing , and whether he is going over the bounds vis-a-vis the free speech. He has made a name for himself for attacking various religious persons, institutions and values sacred to others. I do not contest his right to be wrong , but I am also cognizant of the fact that WP does render judgement on suitability of the content of the blogs. The method Edip Yuksel is employing , specifically targeting another individual, and inviting others to abuse the blogging system with multiple blogs directed at the same purpose should also be questioned. WP cannot judge the veracity of all accusations in millions of pages of content, however it can place certain limits such as selection of blog names etc, as it does in the terms of service it is offering. Edip Yuksel and others should also be mindful of the fact that they have the right to free speech but exercising it on WP is a privilege.
Bekir Yildirim (the post above me) is making some very valid points. I live in the US as a Turkish-American, and we cherish the freedom of speech here. However, there are terms of service for using most services provided by companies, they are not necessarily bound by freedom of speech in the strictist sense and have responsibility to control content. In that regard, WP is being rather insensitive not engaging this issue and appear to be taking a “why should I care” attitude. I was, as Mr. Yildirim above, has began to held WP also responsible for this ongoing saga.
Mr. Yildirim, by the way you have a very articulate prose, nice reading
I agree with Ali agreeing with Bekir making some very valid points. Bekir posted the exact same post as above on my first article on NowPublic (NP) about the block, which led me to his WordPress (WP) blog. Coincidentally, I also posted to NP about Ali’s excellent piece on the Guardian “commentisfree” page. Like Bekir, I am in Turkey running a WP blog. And being British, I cherish the freedom of speech from my homeland as Ali does in the US. That said, I’ve become very aware in my 2.5 yrs here of exactly what the Turkish state is and has been capable of, and have written extensively on it.
As I commented on Bekir’s WP blog, it has been difficult to remain objective on this when my blog is one of the thousands inaccessible (except through devious curcumvention and too slow! means), and it’s all appears to be down to one man’s “sensitivity” and his lawyers. BUT — and I’m desperately searching for clarification on this so PLEASE anybody correct me if I’m wrong — technical and geeky commonsense suggests that it is technically POSSIBLE to block ONLY the “offending” blogs — i.e., the ones stemming from Edip Yuksel — especially as the url’s for WP start with the name (name.wordpress.com). If this is the case, why take out the entire network? It would seem to be overkill in that sense. So, if this is technically possible to target only the offending blogs then killing the whole of WP in Turkey smacks more of punishment of WP for not responding to Oktar’s lawyer’s previous requests (as claimed in their letter to WP)… and so, on that score, I rest with WP — and all who support them as the MidEast petition attests — for remaining “defiant” of such overkill…
The other issue here (and I asked Bekir on his WP blog if he knew, having been the subject of a lawsuit threat himself in Turkey) is how does this court order work? Was there a court trial beforehand concluding that Okar was “defamed.” There certainly hasn’t been ANYTHING in the Turkish press about it — and Oktar is no stranger to making it into the news, such is the controversy that surrounds him. Point being that if there was a trial beforehand, and slander has been proved then it’s a fair deal that the WP network was blocked in Turkey. The onus is then more on WP to remove the offending blogs… BUT, they would also know WHY they were blocked from the outset if this was the case. Even WP founder Matt Mullenweg had no idea why, and subscribed to the unsubstantiated claim (read: suspicious smokescreen) from a contributor that it was a technical glitch and that it was all ok now (as Esra’a links to up top in the updates)… until plenty of others weighed in, myself included, that WP was still very much blocked. This was Sun., three days into the block, and Mon., Matt released the lawyers’ letter he received posting it on WP. Basically, it would seem that only then did WP know what the hell was going on… and not from a court order BUT from a lawyer’s letter. So a feasible conclusion from this is that all that was needed by Oktar’s lawyers was an APPLICATION to the court. The Turkish legal sytem did the rest — i.e., a CLAIM of slander was all that was needed. (But again, any Turkish legal experts out there please put me straight… meanwhile, I am going to track this info down with a lawyer I just thought of.)
This is not only “shooting the messenger” as Ali headlined his Guardian piece, but also shoot first, ask questions later.
So that, in my opinion, also lays the blame (alongside Oktar) with Turkish law.
And this is where I agree with Ali wholeheartedly (on Guardian and his own WP blog) — if it’s the law at fault then it goes all the way to the top: The AK Party govm’t. A legal system that denies freedom of speech to thousands of bloggers at the hands of one writ does not befit the ruling AK Party’s liberalizing pro-EU reforms and is, frankly, politically embarrassing. Especially considering the source of the block. Well, it should be embarrassing.
Personally, I have no truck with the AK Party. They are consummate politicians fighting a tough corner and admirably so. With engineered “pro-secular rallies” earlier this year, a forced never-before-used legal argument (the 367 quorum) annulling the last presidential election (where Gul would’ve won then), and — to top it all off — a threat of intervention by the military themselves, they have come out of it all with a deserved re-election and are very much the model of a Muslim-Democrat political force.
Why did I write “should be enbarrassing”? Well considering the opposition party’s (the Ataturk-founded CHP) lame attempts, aided by the Cumhuriyet & other dailies, earlier this year at tainting the AK Party with a “hidden agenda” — i.e., Gul as pres. will instantly bring Shariah law — had no basis in fact or their record in office… instead it rested on such tabloid headlines as headcsarfed girls reading from the Koran during some national holiday (I forget which, but basically a “secularist” day celebrating the Republic, when in fact it was also the week of the anniversary of the Prophet Muhammed’s birth… but considering that that was enough to spur the mighty TSK (the military) to SPEAK (they alluded to it in their infamous “e-memo” on the night of the first round of the previous attempt to elect Gul, which, for my money, influenced the Constitutional Court to annul the vote), where are they all now? i.e., the CHP and all the anti-govm’t Kemalist dailies. Don’t get me wrong — I’m no fan of any of these people and their totally undemocratic antics. (Read my WP blog: “Turkey by numbers#1 &2,” if you want proof of that.)
But there is a real issue here they could make a meal of to embarrass the govm’t. As Ali wrote in his Guardian post: Is this the first sign of Islamic censorship in secular Turkey?”… more or less. That’s how I used his pertinent question as my headline on NP.
But I’m just a foreigner here. Burasi Turkiye — ben yabanci. Anlamiyorum!
And where is the other brake on the govm’t: the EU?
That’s why it’s important to bring as much attention to this as possible. If MidEast were successful overturning the Morroccan ban on youTube then THIS is THE place to START (with their admirable petition)… and THE PLACE to FINISH IT.
Spread the word… 63 signatures so far…hmmm.
Respect.
PS. By the way Ali, looking at how many coments you’ve been bombarded with on your WP blog by the “other party,” one Edip Yuksel, I feel many should feel wary of his involvement in all of this.
Latest on WordPress block in Turkey. An English tranlation (courtesy of Istanbul Despatches) of an interview first published in Turkish with WP boss Matt Mullenweg… Matt remains defiant: “We will never limit Turkish bloggers’ freedom of speech.”
http://jimcolella.wordpress.com/2007/09/02/wordpress-we-will-never-limit-turkish-bloggers-freedom-of-speech/
…also articles/info on CNN & Flickr Blog also caught in the net in the WP block in Turkey.
I’ve linked to the petition here… but we need many more signatures. Keep the ball rolling MidEast!
Thanks so much for all your work Jim. You’re doing great. We definitely need more signatures but there isn’t enough awareness about it – we should focus on spreading the word.
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