AKP Watch January 23rd, 2008
YouTube managed to be banned twice in Turkey within a week by having rulings from two separate courts consecutively.
The initial ruling came from Ankara Criminal Court on 17th January. Four days later, YouTube stated that they removed alleged videos and filed an appealed to lift the ban. However very same day, in another city, the Criminal Court of Sivas ruled to ban YouTube again. As of today, there are two seperate court orders to ban YouTube in Turkey.
As Turkish Traditional Media is almost totally under ruling Islamic AK Party’s control, YouTube emerged as an alternative free speech platform for opponent voices such as Yalcin Kucuk, Tuncay Ozkan and Nihat Genc. For this reason, surpression of internet based opposition is the one of highest priorities of Islamic AK Party government.
Although Turkish Courts are doing great job to silence internet based opposition, recently Islamic AK Party passed a new internet legislation to form an internet authority enabled by unrestricted powers to ban any internet site without court ruling.
Meanwhile yet another free speech platform, WordPress is still banned in Turkey since last six months.
AKP Watch August 20th, 2007
Well known AK Party connected Islamic Cult leader Adnan Oktar obtained a court order to block wordpress.com from Turkey.
People trying to visit WordPress.com from Turkey are seeing this message: “Access to this site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/195 of T.C. Fatih 2.Civil Court of First Instance.” 
Adnan Oktar, also known as Harun Yahya, an islamist, spearheaded an effort to attack Turkish academics who taught evolutionary theory. A number of academics were harassed, threatened and slandered in fliers that labeled them “communistsand Maoists” for teaching evolution.
Oktar’s group had been found to engage in extensive criminal activity. These crimes included blackmail, possession of unlicensed weapons and sexual intercourse with individuals under age 18. Oktar (recorded by police cameras, leaked and shown on Turkish TV channels such as Kanal D, ATV, Star) confessed to blackmailing people who they regarded as an obstacle to their enterprises. These people included the former reporters for the newspaper Hurriyet, Emin Colasan, and Fatih Altayli, after they questioned some of Harun Yahya’s activities such as bribing the municipality of Ankara.
Both of the journalists lost their posts later. Journalist Emin Colasan fired from his post in Hurriyet because of the heavy pressure from Islamic AK Party. Fatih Altayli also was forced to resign from his post as chief editor of daily newspaper Sabah.
Despite of the countless bribery scandals Ankara municipality is still led by AK Party’s Melih Gokcek who was the responsible of recent droughts in the city.
