There’s been quite a discussion going on in my personal blog about the fact that all of WordPress.com has been blocked by Turkey.
Lots of people, including us, are confused and indignant about this wholesale censorship. Last night we received a letter from the person claiming to be responsible for the block, which in the interest of the community I’m going to publish in its entirety here:
Dear Sir,
We have applied to you to remove the unlawful statements regarding my client Mr. Adnan Oktar (who is the author of the books written under the pen name Harun Yahya) in your blogs. The number of our attempts to inform and warn you regarding these defamation blogs must have been at least twenty, many times through your support page, a couple of times to your legal department and we even sent a regular mail to Mr. Matt Mullenweg. Most of our attempts were unanswered.
These defamation blogs contained slanders to some of my client’s friends as well. They also applied WordPress.com support with their official ID cards and a representative directed them to write to the legal department. So they did but again no response from legal.
So we have become obliged to apply to Turkish judicial courts to stop this defamation executed through your services. By the decision of Fatih 2nd Civil Court of First Instance, number 2007/195, access to WordPress.com has been blocked in Turkey.
The organization, which is led by Edip Yuksel, responsible for these defamation blogs in question are currently up for crimes such as “building an organization to commit crime” in Turkey. The sites of Edip Yuksel, http://www.yahyaharun.com, http://www.19.org, http://www.calinmisgenclik.com and also the blog under your site with the user name http://adnanoktar.wordpress.com have been blocked by Turkish judicial courts in Turkey before(by Gaziosmanpasa Civil Court of First Instance, dated 06.04.2007 and decision number 2007/130 D. Is) . We have also sent you the official documents on this judicial decision in one of our applications to you.
Since Edip Yuksel and his crime organization could easily start new blogs in your site, they had even launched a campaign in opening defamation blogs regarding my client and had explicitly expressed this organized endeavor in his defamation blogs:
“In order to make people hear our voice, let everyone start new blogs from websites such as
http://blogcu.comorhttps://wordpress.comand let them copy the posts on those blogs and paste them to their own. You can start several at once, if possible. Please remember that the name you will give to the blogs, should be related to Adnan Oktar or Harun Yahya in order to find them quickly through Google search. If the names are already taken, you can solve this problem by using characters such as “_” (Adnan_Oktar) or numbers such as AdnanOktar100, Adnan_Oktar_50.”The aim of all of these blogs that he and his organization starts, was to insult my client. All of them were completely full of slanderous statements. There are still some sites left open -not accessible from Turkey, but still accessible abroad – :
http://adnanoktar.wordpress.com
http://adnanoktarveislam.wordpress.com/
http://fitikado.wordpress.comhttp://oktarbabuna.wordpress.com
http://adnancilar.wordpress.com/
http://adnanoktarveislam.wordpress.com/
http://whoisharunyahya.wordpress.com/
http://adnanoktargercekleri.wordpress.com/
http://quiestharunyahya.wordpress.com/
http://harunyahyaarabic.wordpress.com/
http://safsataciharunyahya.wordpress.com/
http://savsatalaracevap.wordpress.com/The below are taken but still empty:
http://adnanzedeler.wordpress.com/
http://kodadiabi.wordpress.com/As we have requested before:
WE DEMAND YOU TO REMOVE AND PROHIBIT ANY BLOGS IN YOUR SITE THAT CONTAIN MY CLIENT’S NAME ADNAN OKTAR OR HIS PEN NAME HARUN YAHYA OR VARIOUS COMBINATION OF THESE 4 NAMES.
Yours sincerely,
Attorneys of Mr. Adnan Oktar (Harun Yahya)
Atty. Kerim Kalkan / Atty. Ceyhun Gökdoğan (Istanbul Barr register number:
27405)Address: Darulaceze caddesi, Bilal Is Merkezi, A Blok, D:5. Okmeydani Sisli
Istanbul
Telephone: 90 212 220 31 20
Fax: 90 212 220 74 21
E-mail: rotahukuk@rotahukuk.com
ceyhungokdogan@istanbulbarosu.org.tr
So there you have it.
I’m curious, particularly amoung our Turkish community, what do you think we should do about this? How should we respond?
Update: I have some new info from the offending lawyers on my blog.
WordPress.com News 
I have blocked Turkey from my all my blogs and websites. It is still welcome on my table at Thanksgiving. Hang tough Matt.
Wow.
Just one more reason I am SO glad that I was born in America. Can you imagine? They’re blocking the ENTIRE wordpress domain. Will they block the Blogspot domain, too? Then LiveJournal, then Typepad, then ???? Soon, Turkey will be only allowed to read their own government’s posts.
That’s just sad.
Oooh… no.
It’s a free world, Matt…
maybe ek$i sozluk’s lawyers can help you further. here you can find the email adress of ek$i sozluks admin.
http://ssg.sourtimes.org/
Welcome to 1984.
We are proud to inform all readers and users that you will find a verry efficient working FreeWare Tool for bypassing censorhip called
PHANTOMIX Live CD, based on KNOPPIX, TOR and Privoxy are implementated. ISO download by
http://phantomix.ytternhagen.de/
Linklist of the Network against Censorship
http://forum.opensky.cc/links.php?t=sub_pages&cat=2
There you will also find other helpfull Services like Proxies.
NetDefender
Whether or not this nut job is responsible for finding a Turkish court gullible enough to make such a sweeping judgement without requiring WP lawyers to be there isn’t the only issue here. You can’t have democratic governments just turning off the information taps, fine. But even worse, for WordPress, is the idea that a democratic government can take such radical steps against a (re: Your) company for such a tiny issue. Either way — altruistic or corporate — there has to be some responsibility on WP’s part to get the Turkish blogs back up… I think it’s time to find a good lawyer working in Turkey.
And you might want to find one in Canada, because you may also be looking at similar actions here from a guy named Wayn* Crook*s (stars are mine). He’s suing several bloggers, including the blog hosts as well as MySpace, Google and Wikipedia. So far several blogs in Canada have already been shut down.
Good luck with this Matt.
WordPress should not be used for spreading hate, lies especially pornography which are hiding under the “free speech” or “democrazy” jargon.
If these blogs are violating wordpress terms, then remove them, if not, leave them as is. Freedom of Speech all the way.
A Turkish visitor just arrived on my blog.
To say the least, this is a disturbing reflection on the present political and social turmoil in Turkey when an individual has the power to get a website banned in an entire country. Turkish bloggers in particular, but all bloggers here on WordPress.com and elsewhere in general, should be pressing the Turkish legal system to get this shameful ruling reversed.
I believe people like Adnan Oktar exist all around the world. Hungry for power and influence, they want to spread their ideas freely (true or not, well argued or not), but cannot stand to be critized, for they fear that they will be exposed as what they truly are.
I believe the real issue is Turkey’s current laws on the internet. Previously, youtube was banned to every internet user in Turkey, due to a single video, which is really irrational and absurd. As some commentators pointed out, this may lead to banning google or wiki.
Users in Turkey are deeply disturbed by these recent events: “The bans will eventually be lifted, but the stains will remain.”
Keith:
Good observations on Turkey! I am from Izmir (and also glad that you experienced one of the brighter sides of Turkey) and well aware of the fact that Adnan Oktar and his followers do not represent the people here. Undoubtedly there are many people who will support these kinds of acts but regarding these bans, the almost all of the Turkish people I know and talk to are sad, angry and ashamed.
Matt I think you have an assistant knows Turkish and inform you about content of blogs that were complained. WordPress should heed to protect personal rights of people, you can remove these blogs because freedom of speech can’t make true violating terms.
There is a big fault in Turkey with blocking all WordPress but if you help the court removing the blogs, the black will be ameliorate. It’s not about freedom of thought, these blogs overstated allegations without evidence.
While I reel in shock. Thank you Mornatur Arquenóro for a sensible reply.
WordPress.com is the judge and jury for any and all content that doesn’t:
1) break laws in the server’s physical legal location
2) break laws in any country that someone with ownership of that server resides
You are free to show prejudice, slander, hate, love, peace or apathy in equal, disproportionate or random quantities.
I disagree with what some wordpressers might write, but I would fight to the death, or at least digg an article about their arrest and execution, in defense of their right to write it.
Like, omg, Voltaire for the ’00’s kthxbi.
The blogs should be left alone. This case seems to be quite similar to the blocking of the blogspot domain in Pakistan not so long ago (as was done in India). In both cases the ban was lifted under pressure from the bloggers. While the ban lasted in Pakistan, some bloggers migrated to other blogging services. Others became more creative and found ways around the ban (such as proxy addons for firefox). The whole ban thus became an effort in futility. Now bloggers here can mobilize much faster, know how to use the traditional media to air their grievances and are much more adept at using proxies and other workarounds.
My inclination would be to sue Mr Oktar thriugh the Turkish courts for loss of revenue occasioned to the many WordPress bloggers based in Turkey who have not even mentioned Mr Oktar on their blogs.
If Mr Oktar has a problem with certain blogs he should pursue the relevant bloggers not the whole of WordPress, just because WordPress provides the host medium. Following the same argument, why stop at WordPress? Why not ban the whole Internet? Would the Turkish courts go along with that?
Dear Matt, (Paul – 21/08/07@0635)
That statement couldn’t be clearer – or – does the removal violate the concept of Freedom of Speech? If so, then surely the terms of what we can all agree to be an acceptable level of freedom need to be clearly laid down for us all to abide by.
It is a sad fact that our much-touted freedoms are being eroded at an ever increasing rate as the world shrinks.
It is not a task I would like to take on…but power to your elbow. We do need to call a halt to the loss of our now fast disappearing rights.
Set the standards, fly the flag and – Good Luck!
Very good start for a country that wants to join the European Union…
Are freedom has been misused? 😕
I am Turkish. I was on holiday and as soon I as I got back, I wanted to check my blog and confronted the surprise waiting for me. Not a pleasant one. Since I was away and not aware of what’s going on, I started searching for more info. This censorship cannot be accepted and yet we are facing it the second time, after youtube was censored. As I searched on the internet for info, I read quite a few posts and everyone is angry but guess we just don’t know what we can do. So instead of gathering and maybe starting a petition or doing something, in most posts they suggest people to go change their dns settings so that they can view the site again; but I know something more radical should be done if we do not want to face this absurd and idiotic censorship.
What is ridiculous is that the complaint came from Adnan Oktar and as far as I read above, you all know what a scoundrel he is. It is a big irony that a man who has been to the court countless times for all kinds of disgraceful reasons changed sides this time and here we are with limited freedom because of him. Well I can’t say much…
Very big shame for us.
This is something ridiculous. One cannot ban the entire domain because someone who is control in the sub domains does something notorious. This is something impractical and illogical.
Suppose, the person who is writing the alleged defamatory statements from the wordpress blogs also register himself to every blogging platform and other domains and simply copy the same posts in every blog with every services, what will the Courts of Turkey can do? still the Courts of Turkey will go on banning every domains?
It is also impractical to remove the blogs in question, because one can simply put up new blogs every other day as it is impossible to check the intention of the bloggers what he is going to put in his blog/s.
Further if the blogger has little imagination he can simply change the person about whom he is writing, then technically he is not in clutch and still he can write about the person. Suppose if I want to write about wordpress, I can refer wordpress as WP, WordP, WPress, WP.com and so on.. so the readers still understands about what I am talking about .
WordPress is providing blogs to write my thoughts on it, WP provides platform, I put my content on it. Credit ,positive or negative, for whatever I do on the blog goes to me. Banning wordpress for the statements of a blogger is like banning paper producer who provides blank papers to me for writing on them.
So, banning wordpress is incorrect, illogical and illegal, the Courts of Turkey are not able to spot and stop the person who is writing all these things so they are trying to ban WP. So, if the blogs in questions are not violating the terms and conditions of WP , they are entitled have their voice heard.
Hi Matt,
im from turkey, i think in some way
when these blogs against personal right, or copyright remove them
like many other blogs.
all these blogs belong to one man.
all created some reason in different names.
you see something devilled behind these.
O wow.
Where’s the democracy and freedom of speech?
I find it weird that you were never asked in court, now that’s simply one-sided.
I don’t think they should be removed. Whatever happened to “freedom of expression”?
*.Wordpress.com Blocked in Turkey
Wow, If you’re wondering where all your blog traffic evaporated to… Visits from inside Turkey are now kaput until Matt and co wrench a solution. So, what happens when Turkey completely isolates themselves digitally? I mean, Google’s n…
Please sign our petition about this:
http://www.mideastyouth.com/petitions/view_petition/PET13433106/Petition_to_Unblock_WordPress_in_Turkey.htm
And pass it along!
Uhm, I’m half-Turkish, lived there 7 yrs. of my childhood (ages 5-12, I’m back in Memphis, TN, USA now, age 45, female). I don’t remember having freedom of speech. That’s one thing that’s keeping them out of the EU. Remember Orhan Pamuk? They’ll stay out of the EU until they “grow up.” Also, I’m thinking that all you have to do is slip a little money under the table and there you have it! No more wordpress. They just elected a non-secular government!
Does anyone comment here bother to read what’s already have been said before submitting?
Not to sound grumpy, but I actually waded through the comments and found some golden nuggets of information among all the repetitious Wikipedia links and “Adnan Oktar is a creationist etc…”.
I live in Turkey… and I managed to get around the block. Oktar is a powerful Islamist whose influence apparently extends very far indeed. Of course WordPress shouldn’t feel any obligation to respond at all. This kind of action will only increase the interest in reading the “anti-Adnan” sites… and my friends here will all find ways to read them…
A wrote a paper recently about Oktar and the greater trend behind his popularity:
http://thestylitepapers.blogspot.com/2007/04/bucailleism-reconciling-modern-science.html
And if you just want to read the part about Adnan Oktar:
http://thestylitepapers.blogspot.com/2007/04/bucailleism-reconciling-modern-science.html
oops. here’s what that last link should have been:
http://thestylitepapers.blogspot.com/2007/08/excerpt-about-adnan-oktar-and-turkish.html
Surely the questions are fairly simple:
1) Did WordPress repeatedly ignore representations made to it? – In which case you should surely review how you deal with such representations – this is not germane to the validity of the complaint but it does make you look rather foolish.
2) Have the bloggers mentioned broken the WordPress terms and conditions? – If they have broken the ts and cs, then there would have to be a good reason to treat them as a special case and retain their blogs; if they have not broken the ts and cs then their blogs should not be removed.
3) Is the move to block the entire domain, rather than just the specific sub-domains, legal in Turkey? If not then the Turkish government or their agency is acting illegally by their own laws. I don’t know where that gets you, but it might get you somewhere.
4) Surely most mileage can be made out of Turkey’s desire to be seen as a modern nation? Blocking the entire domain of a Web 2.0 site where the content is almost entirely created by users makes Turkey look foolish, naive and unsophisticated. Again I don’t have a view on how to apply pressure, but that seems to me to be the point of leverage.
6) The fact that the person these blogs are about is a creationist and seems to be an Islamic fundamentalist is irrelevant and risks clouding the issue which is about the site’s own ts and cs, the legality or otherwise of the ban of the entire site, and Turkey’s political desire to be seen as a modern nation.
I wish I had more solutions, but hopefully this helps disentangle the issues.
Aphra.
hey guys,
i am a german/turkish blogger but not living in turkey.
the point about harun yahya is, that he is linked to the islamic part of the turkish government. he is not directly in the government, but has good connections to it.
and the fact that the conservative-islamic party AKP won again the elections,
allows harun yahya the support of his own government.
he publishes books against the theories of darwinism, so you can call him a islamic writer.
i have just checked out the pages and most of them are just criticizing the person harun yahya, nothing else.
For example this excerpt at http://whoisharunyahya.wordpress.com/
[…]
He is further described by supporters as a respected ’scientist’ who has publications in incredibly diverse areas of interest (actually he is not a university graduate). He speaks only Turkish. The fact is that, his publications and his foundation (Science Research Foundation) have recently been banned in Turkey, and most members of his “sect” have been sent to court. This was not due to their Islamic and scientific activities, but due to crimes such as blackmail, extortion, possession of unlicensed weapons and sexual intercourse with minors. About three years ago, upon complaints of victims and many years of suspicion, Turkish police raided residences of this group. The discoveries at the houses and testimony of the group members were shocking. Under the mask of promoting Islam and scientific facts, the group members had been found to engage in extensive criminal activity. These crimes included blackmail, possession of unlicensed weapons and sexual intercourse with individuals under age 18. The head of the group, Adnan Oktar (recorded by police cameras, leaked and shown on Turkish TV channels such as Kanal D, ATV, Star) confessed to blackmailing people who they regarded as an obstacle to their enterprises. These people included the reporters for the newspaper Hurriyet, Emin Colasan, and Fatih Altayli, after they questioned some of Harun Yahya’s activities such as bribing the municipality of Ankara.
[…]
I read half of the comments in response. I am from Turkey and I am writing for one of the largest newspapers in Turkey.
Let me state that this is not the first time, in the past Turkey has also blocked YouTube.
What you see is the direct result of a country struggling with new technology. Turkey has rules for traditional media however for new media (blogs) the rules are not in place. It will take some time and finally be there.
With respect to some of the comments, I see arguments like Free Speech, shame Turkey and publicize etc. This is the ignorance of American thinking. Turkey courts doesn’t have a problem of being shameful, neither they care about the freedom of speech term the way they understood in USA. (Don’t get me wrong Trky also has freedom of speech, however if you are publicly blaming somebody without evidence, Turkey courts protect your dignity, that is where freedom of speech sort of stops. I am not arguing how broad the freedom of speech should be, it is what it is in Trky, just informing you guys)
What should wordpress do, simple, remove the blogs. It is violating Turkish laws (you may not like it but they are Turkish laws). Than you can continue to serve pages in Turkey. For reference, youtube already removed the questioned pages in the past. Another solution would be doing a selective removal, those pages doesn’t show up from Turkey IPs but show up from everywhere else.
Cheers,
B.
if there is such mails which they claimed they sent WordPress but WordPress did not do anything, so Worpress is also guilty of this crime. If not, what’s your advice for peoples, just watching insults, swears or illegal propagates about themselves ?
Defamation is often a matter of opinion. It seems to me the attorneys should have put their focus on the blogger instead of the content. And with the wonderful commenting ability of Web 2.0, those who feel violated can easily gather supporters to comment on the blog post(s). Why take the fight to court and block a website when you can have an active and long discussion online for the world to see? Those who fear freedom of expression will never embrace blogs.
I think we should definitely take down everything that offends this guy … and then take off anything that offends anyone else. Maybe check with every politician, foreign dictator, celebrity, businessperson, or whatnot. Then we can all just post things that won’t offend anyone.
I’ll replace the blog I just created with the “I Like Puppies” blog, I guess …
Hi
Only a noob here but, for what it’s worth…
Defamation laws can be a near-impenetrable rainforest in a single sovereign state (like here in New Zealand, for example). I’m not a lawyer but I doubt if Jung & Freud together could conjure up the nightmares surely involved in international cases.
But it seems to me, on initial reading of the bully-boy letter (pretty much pro-forma for lawyers everywhere) that this is still what is – just a legal case!
Nowhere, in its legally-long-winded loquacity, does the letter ever state that the ALLEGED defamation has been proven in a court of law. Were the judgments – I can only assume there were multiple citations for libel – delivered to you or your agents?
True, the fact that the court placed a blanket injunction on your services might tend to suggest that the judgments DO exist but, since the were good enough to send you copies of one set of judgments, why not the other?
A thought, nothing more I’m afraid.
If Matt wishes, I could refer him to an attorney who has been representing the parents of abused children against Adnan and his cult.
For the record: I have no connection with those who use wordpress to expose Adnan’s cult. I wrote only an article titled “Harun Yahya or Adnan Oktar: The Promised Mahdi?” I stand by every word of that article, and I am ready to prove each of them at a court if needed.
WordPress is not the only site blocked by the backward laws that protect public figures, especially Adnan, like babies. Adnan Oktar is a fascist megalomaniac who controls the minds, genitals, and the purses of his few rich and handsome followers like an octarpus. He dreams to control the world as a “mahdi” by turning it to a nightmare for others.
Knowing a bit from the first hand experience with the Turkish judicial system and the bureaucracy , I blamed primarily the system in this ostensible 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.
Perusing through some of the comments on the matter 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.
P.S: I will write to Mr. Oktar and his attorney, and ask them to be more considerate of the others’ right to provide and access information, and offer them alternatives to deal with such attacks.
No more attacks on free speech and the freedom of the press! Enough! Don’t give an inch! Look here what is really going on: http://i15.tinypic.com/4lryyhd.jpg
Here* you can learn how to pass over this block by using TreeWalk. This blog tells how to install this program wtih screenshots.
Bu çağdışı sansürleri aşabilmek için yapmanız gerekenler çok basit.
Lütfen 5 dakikanızı ayırınız ve Treewalk programını kurarak bütün bu engellemelerden kurtulunuz.Adım adım programı nasıl kuracağınız anlatılıyor.
* http://divxplanet.wordpress.com/2007/02/23/treewalk-engellenen-sitelere-erisim-divxplanet/
It is a violation of Human Rights to block all the Turkish bloggers as well as the Turkish people in general from information and the right to free speech.
It is a gross injustice to 1,3 million bloggers to punish them collectively for a crime not committed.
73 million Turks are punished as well! For something, they did not do.
It is blackmail and criminal act. We have the right to offend! Last time Turkey cut of the access to YouTube. They said, the founder of modern turkey Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – long since dead – was offended. Modern?? They call censorship modern??
Turkey needs to learn, what modern means. It means democracy. And Turkey can not dictate American laws from their courts. That is out of the question. Because if that happens, islamic states will have the power to shut the hole free world down.
If it isn’t offensive to islam, then it is offensive to the muslims and civilization as we know it will have ceased to exists.
I refuse to be censored by any state at random!
Please do not sell our freedom! Don’t give in! Fight for the free word. For the right to press the free word. On WordPress. And else where.
Please do not surrender!
As a matter of fact, thousands of Turkish WP bloggers + blog viewers cannot connect to WP to comment on this post unless they change their DNS servers. I have really no idea what can be done on the WP side but I know I have lost over 90% of my visitors like almost all of the thousands of blogs in Turkish here.
I’m really happy with WP and I don’t want to leave to another blog service. I will certainly wait for a some while hoping this issue is going to be sorted out. I have sent an email to one of the Turkish newspapers (http://muzikveben.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/wordpress-yasagi-hakkinda-radikale-yazdigim-email/) and ask them to show their sensitivity about this event.
I’m always positive+ but on the other hand, I’m really unhappy about over 90% of my visitors, searching and finding my blog through google and click to see a message that reads “Access to this site has been suspended…”. They will only think that it is something about MY blog! I’m afraid, if it takes long enough, my PR is gonna drop and I won’t have the same amount of visitors even the blockage is removed.
I want my WP back!
I live in a small island of Mediterranean, called Cyprus. Just a few of you knows that Cyprus was occupied by Turkish army, by force, in 1974. You may wandered what is the relation with the current discussion. Cyprus is a member of E.U since 2004, but still, almost the half territory of the island, is occupying by Turkey. Turkey also wants to be a new member of E.U but they don’t recognize the legal Republic of Cyprus. It’s the only country of Europe which does that.
As for the current block, it didn’t suprise me. Turkey never learned whats the meaning of Speeching and reading freedom. Sometimes, inside Turkey, they KILL(!!) people when they just say an opinion which wasn’t good for some people.
In conclusion, they don’t ‘Live’ in 21st century. It seems to living like 100, or even more, years ago…
If a UK lawyer sent such a letter the first thing you would expect to see is a summary of what the content that is alleged to be defamatory is. Then you would see an interpretation as to what those defamatory words were alleged to have meant to a typical reasonable reader in their ordinary and natural meaning. Finally you would see an assertion that the words were untrue. And an indication of the evidence that supports that contention. It is certainly not illegal here to publish anything defamatory at all. If I write that Peter Sutcliffe is the grossest and most reprehensible serial killer we have ever entertained it is certainly defamatory. It is also true. It is also fair comment on a matter of public interest. So it is not libellous . That is a big difference. Apart from being a nutter I understand the plaintiff to have criminal convictions himself. Hence he has no reputation worth defending. On our recent cases any proceedings here would probably be struck out under our Civil Procedure Rules Part 3 as an Abuse of Process. The game is not worth the candle.
to kdok and the other Turks reporting on this blog who are suggesting that wordpress must remove posts since they are libelous or slanderous:
As far as I can tell from the original letter and Turkish news sources, the posts have not been *proven* to be libelous or slanderous in a court of law.
The court acted on an attorney’s document, instead. It’s a case currently in court and not resolved. I believe Adnan Oktar is also currently on trial for many of the issues which his attorney is labeling as “slanders.”
I may be wrong (please let me know if you have news on this I haven’t seen), but I see no reason wordpress should remove blogs based on *alleged* conduct, regardless of national laws.
That an ignorant court can order a blockage of direct access of all of wordpress.com (like it did with youtube) shows how far the judicial system has still to go in order to implement EU-leaning reforms, and also is an example of the huge problem when there is a government-controlled monopoly telecom that controls all access to the internet (Turk Telecom with their overpriced low-speed ADSL…) Not that AT&T’s impending monopoly on America’s internet will be substantially any better… 😦
Zolos, I really see no connection between your situation in Cyprus and, well, anything.
Dear Zolos,
Please make your personal comments in other forums on the Cyprus issue.
The Turkish Cypriots are favoring reunification in the island and they already accepted the Annan Plan back in 2004 and it is you the Greek Cypriots that refused it.
The accusation of the Turkish lawyer, Mr. Kalkan, who represents a control-freak client who has blocked hundreds of websites before blocking wordpress, is not accurate.
I do not have a single blog on wordpress. Unfortunately, last year I came across a blog, which was using my name and posting a few articles of mine. However, if the owners of the wordpress check their database, they will know that none of those blogs have anything to do with me.
Occasionally, some of the former cult members who were spiritually, emotionally, and financially abused by Adnan contact me for help; but I know only a few of them personally, and I never recommended them to use wordpress for their fight against Adnan and the Turkish courts protective of him. It was their decision to fight the Turkish courts through blogging.
Personally, I do not approve blog-spamming; but knowing the abuse and suppression these young men and women have encountered in Turkey, I can understand and respect their motives. Their overuse or abuse of wordpress was their only chance to fight against a system that unfortunately has protected a cult leader that abused his victims to their bones in multiple ways.
After Adnan Oktar banned my website, http://www.19.org, I hired an attorney in Turkey. (I live in Arizona). After spending several thousand dollars on attorney fees, after getting another court order unblocking my website for Turkish visitors, after more than a year, we are still unable to actually unblock the website. Why? Perhaps, the cult has infiltrated to the Turkish Telecom company, as it infiltrated to some key government offices. This cult is no different than a malicious virus.
Thus, after all of this, I asked a friend of mine to manage a website (not wordpress), http://www.yahyaharun.com, to expose the real motives and works of this cult, which is harming many bright young Turkish children of rich families.
I stand by every statement I write and I never hide my name in my work. I am not scared of Turkish government nor the USA-Inc. I am a free-minded person and I support the freedom of expression of every idea, including those of my enemies. If you check the forums of http://www.19.org and its archives, you will see hundreds of criticism posted against my work and person; some even containing obscene insults against me.
As a principle, I never use obscene language and I am mindful of the moral implications of accusing someone, including my enemies, falsely. As I said, my fight against this cult and its leader was initiated by Adnan, the so-called Yahya Harun, not me. I am a very busy person, and I wish my path was never crossed with that cult leader.
I invite every rational freedom-lover to stand up against this cult for the following reasons:
1. Adnan Oktar’s cult is a fascist organization.
2. Adnan Oktar’s cult exploits young and gullible spiritually, emotionally, personally, and financially.
3. Adnan Oktar’s cult isolates the children of wealthy people from their parents.
4. Adnan Oktar’s cult uses black-mail and bribery to frustrate those who were harmed by the cult.
5. Adnan Oktar’s cult promotes pseudoscience. For instance, it promotes false ideas about the theory of evolution.
6. Adnan Oktar’s cult promotes racism, more specifically, anti-Jewish ideas.
7. Adnan Oktar’s cult considers Adnan Oktar as the promised Mahdi (Muslim version of Messiah) and propagates silly stories fabricated in medieval times.
8. Adnan Oktar’s cult exploits the work of cult members and puts the brand name “Harun Yahya” on all the books and videos.
9. Adnan Oktar’s cult plagiarizes the work of others (including mine), and attributes them to Adnan Oktar under his pen name, Harun Yahya.
10. To appeal masses, Adnan Oktar’s cult fakes as Sunni, yet among themselves they follow the cult’s rules.
11. According to numerous reports, Adnan Oktar’s cult engages in group sex and promote anal sex with girls they consider “concubines”.
12. Adnan Oktar’s cult uses money, political connections, and backward Turkish legal system to censor the former cult members to expose the secrets of the cult.
Peace,
Edip
Issues of libel are currently turning up in Canada as well. It has led to blogs being shut down simply for linking to sites alleged to contain libelous material.
We are witnessing the legal establishment attempting to impose laws meant for other forms of media.
Until international legislation is established specific to each type of internet media we will continue to encounter ludicrous violations of human rights regarding content.