Search results : 104

On 6 March 2007 the Istanbul First Criminal Peace Court ordered a blockage of any access to YouTube.com, a popular video-sharing website. The subject of the court ruling was a video that was deemed to insult Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. In the week preceding the Court's decision, the internet platform YouTube was used as a platform for a virtual conflict between Greeks and Turks who were placing videos on the website with offensive contents. According to news reports, the video, which was the subject matter in the dispute at hand, contained the statement that Ataturk and...

Following the authorisation of the Radyo ve Televizyon Ust Kurulu (Radio and Television Supreme Council - RTÜK) for Murdoch to buy shares in TGRT, another major foreign investment in Turkey could be witnessed at the end of 2006. A share of 25 % of the Dogan TV company (main TV stations are: Kanal D, CNN Türk and Star TV), which belongs to the biggest media group in Turkey, were sold to the German Publisher Axel Springer for an amount of EUR 375 million. According to Article 29 of the Radio-Television Law, 25% is the largest share a foreign enterprise can purchase. The purchase is evaluated as the...

The Turkish Radio-Television Authority, RTÜK, initiated an "Intelligent Signs" (Akıllı İşaretler) system to protect children against the harmful effects of TV broadcasting in Turkey. A pursuant directive shall be designed after a certain test stage. The aim of RTÜK is to develop a sign system "to protect children and youth against harmful media content which may contain bad language; stimulate smoking, alcohol and gambling; suicide; or negative behaviour". The system is based on seven symbols: Four of them show the suitability of programmes according to different age groups (7+, 13+, 18+, or general...

The European Court of Human Rights held by six votes to one that the criminal proceedings instituted in 1998 against the leader of a political party - because of a public speech during an election campaign in 1994 - and the ensuing sentence of imprisonment delivered by the State Security Court, had been a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In its judgment, the Court especially considered the interest of a democratic society in ensuring and maintaining freedom of political debate. The Court also found there was a breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, as...

In 1992, Erdoğan Aydin Tatlav, a journalist living in Istanbul, published a five volume book under the title Islamiyet Gerçeği (The Reality of Islam). In the first volume of the book he criticised Islam as a religion legitimising social injustice by portraying it as “God’s will”. Following a complaint on the occasion of the fifth edition of the book in 1996, the journalist was prosecuted for publishing a work intended to defile one of the religions (Art. 175 of the Criminal Code). He was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, which was reduced to a fine. Tatlav...