For the first time in the history of the Olympic movement until after the 2008 Olympics rather made the news on the impact of this sporting event for the development of the country. Start project, which is implemented prior to the initiative of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and BOCOG, was given in 2003 and conducted for the Center for Olympic Studies and Humanities National University of China. According to the initiators of the project, the report, which is fairly presented in 2010, will be marked with the universal methods for assessing long-term impact of the Games for the development of the country where they are held. In their view, it should become a valuable guide for the next Olympics, housewives, RIA Novosti news agency referring to the local media. Similar records:

In St. Petersburg on auto Likhachev will paste the image macaques
Tax subsidies to put the young family from Pavlovsk in a difficult situation

Who buys Russia

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!

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.

Mr. Yildirim, by the way you have a very articulate prose, nice reading