Turkey: Access to Indymedia-Istanbul and YouTube websites blocked by court orders

SOURCE: IPS Communication Foundation (BIANET), Istanbul(BIANET/IFEX) -
Access to the Indymedia-Istanbul website has been blocked following a court decision. Access to the Wordpress and YouTube websites isalso currently blocked. Turkey continues to close down whole sites becauseof individual contributions, a measure which has been condemned by both BIANET and Reporters without Borders (RSF).

The Indymedia-Istanbul website, an independent news website, has been blocked to access since 21 March 2008, after a decree by the GaziantepAraban Criminal Court of Peace in southeast Turkey.Turkey has banned access to the video-sharing websitehttp://www.youtube.com/ again and again, and ranks high in suppression of webspace. The country has been criticised for blocking access to websitesbecause of individual contributions to a site.Indymedia was formed in January 2003 to counteract the dominance ofmainstream media in supporting the status quo. Website representativesreleased a statement saying, "There are attempts to silence Indymedia withcensorship, but these are only attempts. Prosecutors have not yet learnedthat censorship is technically impossible on the Internet."

For now, the website can be accessed throughhttp://istanbul.bbm.indymedia.org , or through http://anonymouse.org/anonwww.html website where readers can then plug inthe Indymedia-Istanbul URL ( http://istanbul.indymedia.org/ ), or bychanging the DNS settings of Internet connections.For the last two weeks, access to Youtube.com has also been blocked,because the Ankara First Criminal Court of Peace decreed that a videoaccessible through the site insulted Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.RSF had previously condemned the complete blocking of access to Youtubebecause of the content of one or several videos, saying that this kind ofpenalty was "radical" and "disproportionate." Brazil and Iran have carriedout similar punitive measures.The Wordpress.com website was blocked to access in August 2007 after adecree from the Fatih Second Civil Court of First Instance, and is stillnot accessible.Previously, the Eksi Sözlük website, an alternative "dictionary", and theAntoloji.com website were also blocked.For further information on previous blocking of access to YouTube, see:http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/90461For the Wordpress.com, Eksi Sözlük and Antoloji.com cases, see:http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/85905

BILETA conference 2008

Conference papers available here.

“Law Shaping Technology; Technology Shaping the Law”
Security and privacy of our personal information is becoming a central theme with the rise in social networking technologies and user generated content. Have sites such as Facebook and YouTube responded in a timely and effective manner to safeguard our data, whilst promoting our rights to free speech.
Technology to combat crime, and technology used to assist in crime will also be a central theme of the conference.

End of term meal 2007

We all agreed to an outing at 6.30pm on Thursady, 6th December 2007. The funds provided by the HOD would offset the bill for food while everyone would have to pay for his/her drink.
Thai Dragon Restaurant. 35 East Hill, Colchester, CO1 2QX

Teaching hours

The teaching hour is 00.00-00.50 - NOT 00.05-00.55 as at many other places!
REMINDER FOR TEACHING ON COLCHESTER CAMPUS
Please ensure that you arrive at teaching sessions in good time to allow students and staff to move on to their next teaching event and to allow staff following you into the room to prepare for teaching.

Week 1 Reading 2007-8

A marvellous (and short) introduction to Internet law is by Samuelson, 5 Challenges for Regulating the Information Society - its similar to the final chapter in my edited book Regulating the Global Information Society (2000) - there are lots in the library. It covers data protection/privacy, copyright, e-commerce and telecoms law - so right across the basic courses you're taking. Its from 2000 so now its 'historical' in Internet terms.

I will put this on the Course Material Repository (CMR) - Its required reading - but you might find it interesting and useful!

Net neutrality clip

A pro-neutrality view:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWt0XUocViE

Internet IP rights

still haven’t been agreed, and here’s proof

Reading weeks 1-3 2007-8

You should definitely read Henten and Melody before next week’s class and guest lecture, as well as the Do Shin article.

For those of you who have previously worked in the telecoms field, you may also want to read the ADVANCED piece by Alex de Streel. But this is quite advanced so don’t feel obliged at all.

I also suggest that if both Do Shin and Henten/Melody are difficult, you should read (and re-read!) the opening three chapters of Marsden and Verhulst (1999) Convergence in European Digital TV Regulation – there are plenty of copies in the library. It’s a quite straightforward introduction.

Ofcom on European review of the eComms framework

Here’s a recent speech on the current Ofcom view of the European communications framework.

Four guest lectures in 2008-9 ITME

13 November 6-7pm
Tom Kiedrowski, Principal, Strategy & Market Developments, at Ofcom.
Tom does a lot of work with the European Regulators Group and can tell us all the latest developments in the attempts by the European Commission to create a pan-European regulator .

13 February 11.55-12.55pm 3.412
Dr Monica Arino – Ofcom –
“EU Audiovisual Media Policy”

4 March 1-2pm
Dr Ian Brown, Oxford Internet Institute
“Recent Issues in Data Protection Law and policy in the UK”

30 April 1-2pm
Professor Chris Reed, QMW London