Turkey blocks access to YouTube

Turkey has restored its ban of the video host website YouTube, which
was lifted on Saturday, Reuters reports.

The decision to restore the ban was made on Tuesday night. The reason
for the ban is refusal of the website to remove a private video of the
Turkish leader of the Republican People's Party Deniz Baykal and a
member of his party Nesrin Baytok getting dressed in a hotel room. The
video resulted in the politician's resignation.

YouTube was initially blocked in Turkey in May 2008 due to "insulting"
videos about the founder of the Turkish Republic, Kemal Ataturk. Last
week, the videos were removed after a company, founded by the Turkish
Internet Board, used an automatic reports system. YouTube (owned by
Google) carried out its own investigation and failed to find any
violation of the website's rules and restored access to the videos.

On Tuesday, Turkey released a new warning message about the possible
closing of YouTube. This time it was based on refusal to remove the
video with Deniz Baykal. The court decided to remove access to the
website.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that the site was blocked
and then unblocked in a few hours. Reuters reported on Wednesday that
people trying to access YouTube could only see a message that access
had been blocked by the Turkish Department for Regulation of
Telecommunications (TIB). Google reported that it is checking the
information.

Turkish Internet regulation laws are criticized by human rights
activists. In June this year OSCE reported that Turkey blocks access
to 5 000 websites. In 2008  the authorities blocked access to
blogger.com and blogspot.com without giving reasons. Blocking access
to YouTube caused the biggest stir among the public. Even Turkish
President Abdullah Gul expressed criticism of the court's decision and
called for a compromise decision on his Twitter account.