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turk gets 10 months jail for collating Kurd Stuff on DmOz

@lex | 28.11.2004 08:25 | Anti-militarism | Repression | Social Struggles | World

makne writes "H. Ertas, a Turkish editor of the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org) has been sentenced to 10 months in prison after being found guilty of editing a category about the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK)..."

I suggest next Friday people do a concerted worldwide action with the intention of shutting down 2 websites  http://www.teror.gen.tr/english/organisations/pkk.html
and kampanyaturk.gen.tr

makne writes "H. Ertas, a Turkish editor of the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org) has been sentenced to 10 months in prison after being found guilty of editing a category about the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). Ertas's lawyer, Suna Coskun, explained that his client had worked as a voluntary editor at the Open Directory Project during his studies at the Euphrat-University and had been responsible for the Kurdish category. At the same time he became interested in Kurds and undertook his own research into the subject. As a voluntary editor, he had sorted the directory submissions but could not be responsible for their content. Therefore there could be no penalty under international law, according to Coskun. His activities could in no way be understood as 'support for a terrorist organisation' and thus Ertas' release was appropriate. The court sentenced Ertas to 10 months in prison and a fine of 416 million Turkish lire ($293). The sentence is not eligible for probation." By email, makne writes "I don't know the editor personally, but the editor was first arrested two years ago, then released on parole until now. Members of the editor community have tried to help him in any way they can, with no apparent success. The editor resigned from the ODP in 2002."

Makne also provided this link to a summary (from the Kurdish point of view) of earlier attempts to stifle Kurdish sites, including a campaign to have DMOZ's then-parent company Netscape remove the Kurdish category from DMOZ.

Another writes "
I believe that organizations like DMOZ should have the ability to quickly react, perhaps in protest, to situations like this one.

For example, rigorous semantic information attached to every DMOZ record would allow the DMOZ community to suspend or flag all information related to the Turkish government, in protest of the current situation. Such a capability could easily be abused or taken too far, which is why it should be reserved only for situations which have direct effect on the organization (and/or its editors, in the case of DMOZ).

With enough open (as in speech) organizations touching enough people in the world, both major and minor misbehavior by governments around the would could be brought to light in this way. "


Also read  http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=3341

@lex
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