YouTube ban

"ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - A court ordered access to YouTube's Web site blocked Wednesday after a prosecutor recommended the ban because of videos allegedly insulting the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Paul Doany, head of Turk Telekom, Turkey's largest telecommunications provider, said his company had immediately begun enforcing the ban.
``We are not in the position of saying that what YouTube did was an insult, that it was right or wrong,'' Doany told the state-run Anatolia news agency. ``A court decision was proposed to us, and we are doing what that court decision says.''
Visitors to the YouTube site from Turkey were greeted with the message: ``Access to this site has been blocked by a court decision! ...''
A message in both Turkish and English at the bottom of the page said, ``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.''"

For a government to shut down a forum of free speech within their country due to an insult is just plain embarrassing. While it is understandable that a government would be upset by public ridicule, that should not allow them to justify the shutting down of a website in order to stop it. My bias may come from living in a country where the right to free speech is protected, however by YouTube being shut down is taking away the citizens rights to express their feelings in regards to their leaders. So long as the speech posted on YouTube is not threatening the government or the countries safety, then there is no need to ban it. The fact that this public forum was banned from Turkey as a result of a comment that said that the leader, Mustafa Kemal Ataturkma and the Turkish people were homosexuals, is outrageous. This ban reflects the type of government that runs Turkey. If they can not handle jeers from other countries via Internet, then they must not be very powerful at all. Everyday in our country and others as well there are comics, movies, clips and magazines published that bash our president, our government and the American way of life, but you do not see our leaders banning all of these forms of public speech. The Turkish government should rethink this ban, because they are only making themselves look weak, if they can not even handle being called homosexuals without causing an uproar. If YouTube videos are enough to send this government into a panic, how will they act to an actual threat or crisis?