YouTube banned again in Turkey

ISTANBUL – Un-blocked last Saturday, but now re-blocked: a Turkish judge has ruled that access to YouTube has to be denied once again, according to several online papers on Tuesday.

The decision was made following a complaint by Deniz Baykal, who was opposition leader in parliament till earlier this year. He had to step down after erotic videos were put online in which he, a married man, played the main role along with a female parliamentarian from his party. These appeared on video-sharing website Vimeo, which was closed down after Baykal complained. Since YouTube has been available again since Saturday, the video can also be seen there, so Baykal complained again. Not in vain.

It had already been predicted that YouTube wouldn’t stay open for long, but not for this reason. The site opened again on Saturday after videos insulting founding father Atatürk were removed by a third party, as they allegedly violated copyrights. YouTube however concluded that no copyrights had been violated and put the videos back online. While the site would probably have been banned again for that reason, the former politician found a judge on his side.