On 17 January, the Ankara 12th Criminal Court of Peace banned access to Youtube, the international video-sharing website. Then the access ban of the Sivas 2nd Criminal Court of Peace, decreed on 16 January, was implemented.

Yesterday (30 January), the Izmir 7th Criminal Court of Peace decided to ban access to the site, citing a video which contained “disrespect of Atatürk and Turkishness.”

The ban was later lifted.

The access bans on Youtube are particulary interesting because they affect a much wider section of the population than bans on dissident media. The bans are also controversial because a whole website is closed down because of the content of one single contribution.

"Would you close down a post office?" 

A reader of the Ntvmsnbc news website described the excessiveness of the bans by writing: “Now if someone came along and wrote Atatürk insulting letters, would you close down the post office?”

Other reactions were:

“So again it was decided to close it down…I just wonder how many other countries make such decisions?”

“What is this open close open close, everyone acts as they want…let them find a way of preventing not access to the site but illegal content….”

“Stupid! As if the country had no other problems, they keep playing at switching Youtube on and off…This is such an unnecessary effort because everyone can put whatever they want onto the site, no one can prevent that. But we become ridiculous by allowing and then forbidding access.” (EÖ/TK/AG)