Istanbul Indymedia Blocked Inside Turkey

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Submitted by ben on Thu, 2008-03-27 13:54

Istanbul Indymedia is currently being blocked inside Turkey by it's Internet service Provider because an order from the Turkish govenment. The block began on Wednesday, March 26th. Indymedia is currently working to circumvent the banning, and already has several alternate ways to access the site.

Istanbul Indymedia reports:

In the first hours of the ban, there was a message on the blocking page which read: “The access to the site has been banned by ‘Telecommunication Communication Presidency' due to court decree of Gaziantep, Araban Criminal Court, dated 21/03/2008 with no: 2008/418-171”. Whereupon three lawyers from the city center of Gaziantep, moved to Araban district to get the decree of the court, found out that the court had no decree for that number or about the ban of İstanbul Indymedia . After the lawyers went away from Araban to Gaziantep, our site had been unbanned for a while. After a short period, İstanbul Indymedia was banned again, and there was a different message on the ban page which read: “The access to the site has been banned by ‘Telecommunication Communication Presidency' due to court decree of General Staff Presidency Military Court, dated 21/03/2008 with no: 2008/418-171”. Although the dates and the decree number were the same, Gaziantep, Araban Criminal Court was replaced with General Staff Presidency Military Court. The access to the site is still banned by Turkish Telecommunication Company's DNS servers.

There is an attempt to silence Indymedia in Turkey, but it's only an attempt. The prosecutors of Turkish Republic have not yet learned that censorship in internet is technically impossible. Indymedia continues its broadcasting. You may access to Indymedia by various ways. Some of them are:

More info:
Initial announcement
Update from Indymedia Istanbul
Wiki page to collect information on the block

Categories: 
Civil Liberties / Human Rights