Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Turkey bans biologist Richard Dawkins' website

I know Turkey is a long way from joining the EU. I happy with their situation. There is something fundamentally wrong with Turkey, something un-European. I need to look no further for truth of this than Turkey's banning of Richard Dawkin's website.

A court in Istanbul ordered that Turk Telekom block access to RichardDawkins.net because Dawkins defames the Islamic creationist book 'Atlas of Creation'. In fact, what Dawkins does is point out the factual errors in the book and then draws the conclusion that the book worthless.

I am at a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the breathtaking inanity of the content- Richard Dawkins.

How can Dawkins website be guilty of defamation if there are no lies or falsehoods involved? Read the content for yourself. Dawkins points out item after item of inaccuracy. Turkey is stifling intellectual debate in the name of Islam. It's wrong on so many levels. And, it is further proof that Turkey should not be admitted to the EU.

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Tolga K.'s avatar

Tolga K. · 866 weeks ago

As a Turkish person (who has lived in the US since the age of 6 months), I find myself ashamed that I represent both countries wherever I go.

The Turkish government is officially secular, and such a ruling violates that quality. In fact, the best thing that can be done is invoke that Ataturk would disapprove, because there is no greater social sin in Turkey than to speak counter to Ataturk's beliefs and rulings. Ataturk specifically forbade religious influence in politics, so this is clearly counter to the foundation of modern Turkey's history.
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Emel's avatar

Emel · 862 weeks ago

I am a Turkish teacher teaching in Turkey and I am teaching my students how to prepare a scientific project in my lessons. Yesterday I recommended my students to read George Basalla's "The Evolution of Technology". The book is totally based on the theory of Darwin and in any book which is taught in Turkey you can find Darwinist approach. So? Turkish Ministry of Education's teaching curriculum officially teaches Darwinist approach not creationist. And this web site banning stuff is all about the abuse of law in Turkey. I am not ashamed of my country but I am ashamed of not advertising my country like the way it is . Because of our lack of advertising, people outside Turkey totally think about that Turkey is an Islamic and racist country. And then when a web site is banned they just begin to talk about Turkey's EU situation or Islam. This web-site banning is all about Adnan Oktar's personal complaint, because he claims that Richard Dawkins is making fun of him in his web-site. Like this youtube is also banned. And hundreds of other websites. This does not mean that Turkey is full of monkeyheads or something. This only means that in Turkey the law and the judgement system have to be revised. Banning is not the solution. But because of child porn, the law allows website-ban in Turkey and some people abuse this ban for their own-personalized benefits like Adnan Oktar. And a note about Adnan Oktar; nobody cares him in Turkey, he uses a fake name Harun Yahya, and his creationist books are given free to the people in the street. He has also been judged for years because of his illegal jobs. And two top models gave him to the court because of sexual abuse. But a small group of scientist and judgers believe him, this website-ban order might be given by one of them:) But do not worry a big group of protesters live in Turkey and this site will be back in Turkey soon.

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