Turkey closed access to YouTube for insulting the State founder

9th March 2007

The Turkish court decreed to close the access to the largest site of video exchange YouTube for the clip, which, according to the courtsâ€™ opinion, insults the memory of the founder of the modern Turkish state, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The operator Turk Telecom had performed the prescription. Doani Paul the head of Turk Telecom said that the ban has been issued immediately after the prescription. â€œIn our situation it does not matter whether the material offensive, or whether YouTube did correctly or not, - Doani said in an interview to the Turkish state news agency Anatolia. - "We just performed the decision of the courtâ€. At present, access to YouTube from Turkey can be granted through other providers. Turk Telecom will block it until a new order comes. Last week, Turkish mass media published material about the so-called â€œvirtual warâ€ between Greeks and Turks on YouTube, expressed in putting offensive videos. They say, that on video which was the reason of banning YouTube it was affirmed that Ataturk and other residents of the country are gays. The site CNN-Turk opened direct link to the YouTube complaints page. American video site received several thousand complaints and removed the video. Insulting Ataturk in Turkey is treated as a criminal offence, reports Associated Press agency.