A Turkish court from the eastern city of Sivas decided on 18 September 2007 to order the ISPs to block the access to YouTube, considering that one of the video hosted there insulted Turkey's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Turkish army.
Anatolia news agency reported that the order "has been forwarded to the state regulatory body, the Telecommunications Board, to be put into effect." YouTube declared it was ready to cooperate with Turkish authorities to resolve the dispute.
The trial has been initiated by a citizen from Sivas, who complained to the Turkish prosecutors on that video content.
The decision triggered prompt reaction from Reporters Without Borders: "Blocking an entire website because of a few videos is a disproportionate measure," the press freedom organisation said. "We urge the authorities to reverse this decision."
Turkey is not at the first case of this kind, in March 2007 a court obtaining the blocking of the entire YouTube website for two days until some videos allegedly insulting Ataturk were removed from the website.
Another trial related to a video uploaded on YouTube was brought against a Turkish punk band, that produced a song considered to have insulted the Turkish authorities by complaining about a university entrance exam.
The song of the band "Deli" or "Crazy" was several years old, but came into the prosecutors attention after a teenager posted it on the video sharing site last year. The song says that "Life should not be a prison because of an exam" or "I have gotten lost/ You have ruined my future ..."
However, a court decided on the 25 September this year to drop the charges considering that the crime of insulting had not been proved.
Court orders YouTube blocked (20.09.2007)
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=83842
YouTube access again blocked by court order because of "insulting" videos
(20.09.2007)
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=23714
Turkey orders YouTube blocked over clips (20.09.2007)
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/tech/D8RP94F80.htm
Court clears punk band of charges of insulting authorities (26.09.2007)
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=84424
EDRI-gram: YouTube blocked for 2 days in Turkey (14.03.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.5/youtube-turkey