Transatlantic Politics

A headline that reminds of just another day in a Muslim authoritarian regime - "Turkey bans YouTube over a video mocking Ataturk".

Turkish visitors to the site are now greeted with a message in English and Turkish reading "Access to www.youtube.com site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/384 dated 06.03.2007 of Istanbul First Criminal Peace Court". The decision was taken after prosecutors told the court that clips insulting former Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had appeared on the site. According to Turkish media, there has been a "virtual war" between Greek and Turkish users of the site, with both sides posting insulting videos. The clip prompting the ban reportedly dubbed Ataturk and Turks homosexuals.

Strange, because Ataturk is not an acting Arab king or dictator. He died 69 years ago and Turkey is proud of being the only secular democracy among Muslim countries, separating Islam from the government, banning headscarves from public institutions, writing in Latin alphabet. But Ataturk was the architect of these bold reforms that date back to the post WW1-era, and is therefore entitled to have a cult similar to the American Founding Fathers. The problem is that limiting basic civil rights and the access to information in the name of patriotism, or imprisoning  journalists, writers and opposition members over "insulting Turkishness" certainly doesn’t carry on Ataturk’s legacy.
The charges against Nobel Price winner Orhan Pamuk made him a "cause celebre" in the West against the the controversial "Article 301" that refers to "insulting Turkishness". And with the assassination of the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in January this year, the Turkish government has come under an unprecedented pressure from the EU and US to accept the  "Armenian genocide" supposedly carried out by Turkey in 1915. Affirming the existence of the genocide was the reason for Pamuk’s indictment and cause worth fighting for for the late Dink.
Even government officials admit that the freedom of expression issue overshadows completely all the other relevant and important progress and performances Turkey has achieved. "This article 301 overshadows Turkey’s reform progress. Both myself and Prime Minister Erdogan believe that we have to change this article," Foreign Minister Gul said in an interview with EUObserver.
With this latest move on YouTube, they are definitely not moving in the right direction…