New 'Islamist' Turkey Internet law paves way for censorship, concerns journalists.

“Withholding information is the essence of tyranny. Control of the flow of information is the tool of the dictatorship.” ― Bruce Coville

New 'Islamist' Turkey Internet law paves way for censorship, concerns journalists.(TZ).

A new draft law pending in Parliament on the regulation of Internet news portals and websites has caused concern among journalists, as it grants certain bureaucrats the right to ban content without a court ruling.

Law No. 5651 regulates broadcasting on the Internet and is full of changes to increase government control in cases of closing down certain web pages on grounds of protecting the privacy of individuals.

The editors-in-chief of two leading Internet news portals, T24 and Rotahaber, claim that the timing of the change in the legislation signals an effort to cover up corruption allegations about the government that became public on Dec. 17.

Doğan Akın, editor-in-chief of T24, told Today's Zaman on Thursday that he sees the draft law as very problematic, as it grants the president of the Telecommunications Directorate (TİB) the privilege of preventing access to a certain website when it is believed that there is a concern about the privacy of a certain individual.

Referring to phone-tap records between former Interior Minister Muammer Güler and his detained son on the charges of corruption, Akın asked, “What if the minister said that the conversation between him and his son is private, and requested a ban on the publication of the voice recordings?”

He added that the definition of privacy could also be subjective. According to Akın, the whole draft legislation is a government effort to avoid external control, as in the case of limiting the authority of the Court of Accounts.

“The timing of the legislation is meaningful,” commented Ünal Tanık, editor-in-chief of Rotahaber, as he argued that the draft aims to prevent the unfolding of the documents relevant to the corruption probe. 

“Haven't there been problems regarding privacy in Internet broadcasting?” asked Tanık, adding that it would be naive to believe that the legislation aims to ameliorate problems of privacy violations on the Internet.

Hadi Özışık, editor-in-chief of the major Internet news portal Internethaber, disagrees. According to him, TİB aims to form a “union of Internet broadcasters” in an effort to transfer the right to ban certain content from a civilian body.

Bringing examples from the past in which the privacy of politicians were violated by means of sex tapes leaked on the Internet, Özışık says the new legislation allows the victim to ban the content within four hours and without waiting for a court order, but requires the victim to provide a court order within one day.

However, Akın believes that this new clause is arbitrary, as it allows a single person to prevent content on a website. “Why do you give that right to only one person then?” he asks. According to him, there should be no auditing except by the hand of the judiciary.

Akın says one other problem with the new legislation is that it brings additional immunity for the president and the staff of TİB since its president will only be brought to court with the approval of the minister of transportation. Similarly, for any trial of staff, permission will be asked from their superiors.

Tanık says the only positive change with the law would be the partial restriction aspect, through which only pages containing prohibited content are restricted, instead of the whole website. As far as the criticism on traffic control of the websites, Özışık says it has already been done, while Akın says that the existing law has been subject to charges of violation of freedom of expression at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).