Anonymous Hackers group has taken down a Turkish government website in a protest against censorship.

Anounymous hackers has taken down a Turkish government website in a protest against recently introduced Internet filters in Turkey which many consider to be censorship.

The statement from the hacker group Anonymous published on its website :

“ The Turkish government has blocked countless of websites and blogs while abusive legal proceedings against online journalists continue. The government now wants to apply a new filtering system on the 22nd of August that will make it possible to keep track of all the people’s internet activity. Though it remains unknown why and how the system will be put in place, it is clear that the turkish government is taking censorship to the next level,” declared Anonymous in a message on its website.

The attack from Anonymous hit and shut down the site for Turkey’s Telecommunications Communication Presidency (TIB), which is still inaccessible.

Turkey Internet Censorship or Internet Filter ?

Turkey has a long history of Internet censorship, with the country’s ISPs having blocked YouTube and numerous other sites over the course of the last couple of years. The most controversial act of Internet censorship in Turkey, so far, was against global video sharing site YouTube, which was blocked in 2007 after a video containing insults to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, was posted. The ban lifted recently.

The Information and Communications Technologies Authority, ” B.T.K. ”, is going to require Internet providers to offer consumers four choices for filtering the Internet that would limit access to many sites, taking effect in August the 22th. The regulations will bring four mandatory filtering options to Turkey’s Internet users. The filters will be “family,” “child,” “domestic” and “standard.” The criteria by which websites will be filtered will be determined by the BTK. Circumventing these measures will be considered a crime and anyone doing or attempting to do so will face heavy fines. Many websites are expected to be blocked by the filters regardless of their content.

In a similar attempt in February 2011 Anonymous hackers succeeded to take down the government websites of the Ministry of Information and President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party to protest against Internet censorship in Egypt.

 

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