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2011年5月16日星期一

Internet Filters Set Off Protests Around Turkey

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在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中,找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件,或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

ISTANBUL — Thousands of people in more than 30 cities around Turkey took to the streets on Sunday to protest a new system of filtering the Internet that opponents consider censorship.

The Information and Communications Technologies Authority, known by its Turkish initials as B.T.K., is going to require Internet service providers to offer consumers four choices for filtering the Internet that would limit access to many sites, beginning in August.

Protesters in Taksim Square in Istanbul called the action, which regulators say is intended to protect minors, an assault on personal freedom and liberty.

The B.T.K., however, has said that Internet users will still be able to access all content if they choose the “standard” option for filtering. The other filtering options are labeled as “children,” “family” and “domestic.”

Tayfun Acarer, the chairman of the B.T.K., told reporters this month that the change came about because of complaints and demands for safer Internet use in Turkey.

Thousands of protesters in Taksim Square, who were organized through a Facebook page, chanted, “Yes, we ban!” In Ankara, the capital, people cheered, “The Internet is ours and will remain ours!”

For many people in Turkey, having to select a filtering option is just another form of censorship. Already thousands of Web sites are blocked by the state, mostly without any publicized reason.

Furthermore, the B.T.K. recently issued a ban on the use of dozens of casual words on the Internet, like “girl,” “partner” and “animal.” It has not explained how this word ban will be policed.

The most controversial act of Internet censorship in Turkey, so far, was against YouTube, which was blocked in 2007 after the posting of a video that was deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Insulting Ataturk is a criminal offense in Turkey.

That ban was lifted after more than two years when the content was removed from the Web site.


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The Lede: Video of Protests and Clashes in Syria

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中,找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件,或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中,找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件,或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
Video said to show a late night demonstration in Zabadani, outside the Syrian capital of Damascus, on Friday.

As my colleague Anthony Shadid reports, despite a brutal crackdown in Syria, protesters took to the streets in at least five neighborhoods in Homs, Syria’s third-largest city and a center of the two-month uprising. Activists said protests ranged in numbers from hundreds to thousands, and at least two people were killed when security forces opened fire.

Faced with continuing restrictions on independent reporting inside Syria, activists there again posted video online of what they described as new protests and clashes on Friday.

This video, uploaded to YouTube on Friday, is said to have been filmed during a demonstration in the Khalidiya district of Homs earlier in the day:

Although the security forces were reportedly more restrained than on past days, this video, uploaded to the activist Ugarit News channel on YouTube, is said to have been filmed in Khalidiya on Friday as tear gas was fired at protesters:

This video, uploaded to another Syrian activist channel on YouTube, Sham News, is also said to show a clash on Friday in the same neighborhood:

Protests were also reported in the eastern Kurdish city of Qamishli, where this video is said to have been filmed:

Meanwhile in Baniyas, an oil industry town that was assaulted by the Syrian military last week, a resident told The Times that crowds at Friday prayers were smaller than usual and that there were no demonstrations afterward.

“People are extremely scared,” said Abu Obada, a resident there reached by phone. “They’re worried about snipers and they’re worried about the security forces.”

“Most of the people prayed at home,” he added.

Two very graphic clips posted online on Thursday, which are said to have been filmed just after female protesters in Baniyas were killed by the security forces last Saturday, make the source of that fear quite plain:


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