YouTube ban lifted in Turkey

Turkey’s longstanding ban on YouTube, the world’s largest and most popular video-sharing website, was lifted Saturday by an Ankara court following the removal of controversial videos from the service, reports Hurriyet Daily News.

“Turkey is a country run by laws and everyone has to obey the law,” said Transportation Minister Binali Yildirim, who oversees Internet-related issues. “Finally the managers of the website [YouTube] decided to move in this direction and realized there is no other way than following [Turkey’s] laws.”

Public access to the website was banned by a court decision nearly two and a half years ago over videos insulting Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic, something that is illegal in Turkey. Removal of the videos cleared the way for Turkish users to reaccess the website legally, Yildirim said.

A German-based international licensing service owned by a Turkish citizen bought the right to remove the disputed videos from YouTube and announced Friday that they were no longer viewable on the site. Following this development, the court in Ankara acted immediately to allow access to YouTube.

The ban on the site had sparked widespread discussions about Internet freedom in Turkey, where many users had continued to watch YouTube videos by changing their computer settings or using proxy software programs.
 
According to officials, the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office of Ankara sent a letter Saturday to the Police Department asking whether the videos insulting Ataturk had been removed from YouTube. Upon receiving a positive reply from the department, the prosecutor’s office ruled that the ban should be lifted and asked the Telecommunication Transmission Directorate, or TIB, to enable access to YouTube.

“In the end, common sense prevailed; the reasons for the YouTube ban do not exist anymore. As we all see, if one obeys the laws, then there is no problem. But we didn’t get here easily; we have been through a lot in the process,” Yıldırım told the private channel NTV.