Turkey Bans YouTube

Ataturk more revered than Muhammed? Remember the recent brouhaha when PTCL tinkered with banning YouTube over the promos of a movie promo?

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey blocked access to the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube on Thursday in response to a video clip deemed insulting to the country's revered founding father, state-run media said.

Thousands of Turks visit Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's mausoleum in February. Ataturk is Turkey's founding father and it is a crime to insult him.

A court in the capital of Ankara ordered the ban at the request of a prosecutor who had argued the clip was disrespectful to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who died seven decades ago, the Anatolia news agency said.

It was not clear how long the ban would last.

Turkey briefly imposed bans on access to YouTube on similar grounds in the past, but access was restored after the Web site removed the videos.

Under Turkish law, it is a crime to insult Ataturk, a war hero who founded Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.