Turkey Censors Internet Access
A clash between a creationist and an evolutionist is played out in Turkish courts
For two weeks, thousands of internet users in Turkey have been unable to access their blogs as the result of a Turkish court decision to block all access to WordPress.com, a popular blog hosting site. The court action has been met with a storm of protests as Turkey is criticized for censorship in conflict with its own constitution. The case has also been characterized as the latest instance of an ongoing battle between Creation and Evolution in the predominantly Muslim country.
Adnan Oktar, a popular Turkish Muslim author, who writes under the pseudonym “Harun Yahya,” successfully petitioned the court, which initiated the block on August 17th. Oktar and his organization have produced dozens of books, videos, and websites all addressing Islamic themes ranging from anti-Semitism to science in the Qur’an; but he is best known for his ardent anti-evolutionist stance. He is the author of the Atlas of Creation, an 800 page fully-illustrated book that his organization has been sending free of charge to scientists, universities, libraries, and museums around the world, a strategy that caught the attention of news agencies around the world, including the New York Times, which printed a story about Oktar on July 17th. His books and website (www.harunyahya.com) are produced in dozens of languages and are increasingly influential in propagating Islam throughout the world.
Oktar apparently objected to the content of several blogs criticizing him and his anti-evolutionist position. A letter from Oktar’s lawyers to WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg claims that several sites hosted on WordPress are guilty of “defamation” and are “illegal” according to Turkish law. The letter, along with a subsequent press release from Oktar’s lawyers, claims that another popular Turkish Muslim author, Edip Yuksel, is responsible for the content on the offending blogs and that the block is specifically directed at preventing access to Yuksel’s material on the internet. Yuksel is accused in the press releases of running a “crime organization.”
Edip Yuksel, who now lives in Arizona, has also written several books and articles in Turkish and English, and is an outspoken critic of Oktar. He defends evolution as thoroughly compatible with Islamic teaching and the Qur’an. In response to the letters released by Oktar’s lawyers, Yuksel submitted his own letter to WordPress in which he defends against several of the charges against him, claiming that many of the offending blogs aren’t his. Yuksel fiercely criticizes Oktar in his letter to WordPress and on his own websites (www.19.org; www.yahyaharun.com ; www.yuksel.org) accusing him of running “a fascist organization” and engaging in a host of illegal activity. According to Yuksel, Adnan Oktar was an “apprentice” of his in the 1980’s who eventually parted ways with him, initiating the longstanding feud that is now being played out online and in Turkish courts. Several of Yuksel’s sites are also blocked as the result of complaints filed in the past by Oktar.
Creationism has become a key issue in the debate between Turkey’s secularists and those advocating reforms based on Islam. Since the election of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, or AKP) in 2002 and his subsequent reelection earlier this year, the Ministry of Education has been phasing out science textbooks that only teach Darwinism as an explanation for the origin of life, and introducing new textbooks that also include Creationism from an Islamic perspective. The decision to censor WordPress and other sites criticizing Oktar came less than 2 weeks before the swearing in of Turkey’s 11th President, Abdullah Gul, a politician with a distinctly Islamist background.
This is not the first time that Turkish courts have decided to block a website for content that some people found objectionable. In March of this year a Turkish court ordered a block on the popular video hosting site YouTube for videos that allegedly insulted Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. YouTube eventually had the offending content removed and the block was lifted.
Censorship has been an increasingly sensitive topic in Turkey as the country seeks to enter the European Union and struggles with western-style freedom of speech. Singers, artists, and authors have grappled with Turkey’s censorship laws in recent years, particularly the controversial “Article 301”, a vague provision which makes it a crime to “insult Turkishness.” Orhan Pamuk, this year’s recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature was recently exonerated in Turkish courts following charges that his writing violated this law.
Ryan Keating
For two weeks, thousands of internet users in Turkey have been unable to access their blogs as the result of a Turkish court decision to block all access to WordPress.com, a popular blog hosting site. The court action has been met with a storm of protests as Turkey is criticized for censorship in conflict with its own constitution. The case has also been characterized as the latest instance of an ongoing battle between Creation and Evolution in the predominantly Muslim country.
Adnan Oktar, a popular Turkish Muslim author, who writes under the pseudonym “Harun Yahya,” successfully petitioned the court, which initiated the block on August 17th. Oktar and his organization have produced dozens of books, videos, and websites all addressing Islamic themes ranging from anti-Semitism to science in the Qur’an; but he is best known for his ardent anti-evolutionist stance. He is the author of the Atlas of Creation, an 800 page fully-illustrated book that his organization has been sending free of charge to scientists, universities, libraries, and museums around the world, a strategy that caught the attention of news agencies around the world, including the New York Times, which printed a story about Oktar on July 17th. His books and website (www.harunyahya.com) are produced in dozens of languages and are increasingly influential in propagating Islam throughout the world.
Oktar apparently objected to the content of several blogs criticizing him and his anti-evolutionist position. A letter from Oktar’s lawyers to WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg claims that several sites hosted on WordPress are guilty of “defamation” and are “illegal” according to Turkish law. The letter, along with a subsequent press release from Oktar’s lawyers, claims that another popular Turkish Muslim author, Edip Yuksel, is responsible for the content on the offending blogs and that the block is specifically directed at preventing access to Yuksel’s material on the internet. Yuksel is accused in the press releases of running a “crime organization.”
Edip Yuksel, who now lives in Arizona, has also written several books and articles in Turkish and English, and is an outspoken critic of Oktar. He defends evolution as thoroughly compatible with Islamic teaching and the Qur’an. In response to the letters released by Oktar’s lawyers, Yuksel submitted his own letter to WordPress in which he defends against several of the charges against him, claiming that many of the offending blogs aren’t his. Yuksel fiercely criticizes Oktar in his letter to WordPress and on his own websites (www.19.org; www.yahyaharun.com ; www.yuksel.org) accusing him of running “a fascist organization” and engaging in a host of illegal activity. According to Yuksel, Adnan Oktar was an “apprentice” of his in the 1980’s who eventually parted ways with him, initiating the longstanding feud that is now being played out online and in Turkish courts. Several of Yuksel’s sites are also blocked as the result of complaints filed in the past by Oktar.
Creationism has become a key issue in the debate between Turkey’s secularists and those advocating reforms based on Islam. Since the election of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, or AKP) in 2002 and his subsequent reelection earlier this year, the Ministry of Education has been phasing out science textbooks that only teach Darwinism as an explanation for the origin of life, and introducing new textbooks that also include Creationism from an Islamic perspective. The decision to censor WordPress and other sites criticizing Oktar came less than 2 weeks before the swearing in of Turkey’s 11th President, Abdullah Gul, a politician with a distinctly Islamist background.
This is not the first time that Turkish courts have decided to block a website for content that some people found objectionable. In March of this year a Turkish court ordered a block on the popular video hosting site YouTube for videos that allegedly insulted Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. YouTube eventually had the offending content removed and the block was lifted.
Censorship has been an increasingly sensitive topic in Turkey as the country seeks to enter the European Union and struggles with western-style freedom of speech. Singers, artists, and authors have grappled with Turkey’s censorship laws in recent years, particularly the controversial “Article 301”, a vague provision which makes it a crime to “insult Turkishness.” Orhan Pamuk, this year’s recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature was recently exonerated in Turkish courts following charges that his writing violated this law.
Ryan Keating
August 31, 2007
Click here to read a paper about trying to find Modern Science in the Qur'an.
Click here to read just the section about Adnan Oktar from that same paper.
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