A Turkish court has again blocked access to the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube because of clips allegedly insulting the country's founding father; the first ban was also due to clips deemed disrespectful to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a war hero who founded Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. It is illegal in Turkey to insult the revered figure, whose portrait still hangs in almost all government offices nearly 70 years after his death. Users trying to access the Web site from Turkey were met with notices in English and Turkish saying it was banned under an Ankara court order issued January 17.
Last March, another court blocked access to YouTube. The ban was lifted two days later after YouTube removed the offending videos. In September, a court in the eastern city of Sivas ordered a ban after saying videos on the site insulted Ataturk, President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the army, but the ban was never implemented. The current ban will probably also be lifted once Google, the owner of YouTube, removes the “insulting” videos.
News source: Associated Press
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