The Turkish government has blocked WordPress, a blog publishing system, in all of Turkey because of a private defamation case. Because this censorship silences the voices of thousands of Turkish bloggers, we are petitioning for their rights to free speech.

Banning WordPress is a clear violation of free speech that effects the citizens of Turkey, WordPress bloggers, and readers all over the world. Certainly these disputes can be handled more judiciously by the Turkish courts.

We, the undersigned, respectfully ask the Turkish authorities to reconsider the decision to block WordPress.

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION!


Click and add this banner on the sidebar of your blog. Support free speech in Turkey.

Blogging services have been banned periodically in India and Pakistan, as is documented by Wikipedia here and here respectively. In such cases, to access blogs please use:

inblogs.net/yourblogname or pkblogs.com/yourblogname

So if your blog address was http://mynameis.blogspot.com, you will now type in http://inblogs.net/mynameis or http://pkblogs.com/mynameis

Inblogs.net and Pkblogs.com were developed by tech savvy Indians and Pakistanis when the Blogger ban first came up in both countries.

If blogging services are also banned, there are a host of anonymizer websites that will allow you to post through it, for example KProxy and Anonymouse.

The Pakistani blog community launched a ‘Dont Block The Blog’ campaign when the blogger ban was first enforced, and asked all Blogger users to spread the word through banners and stickers. In the event that your country’s telecommunication or IT ministry has indeed blocked blogging services, it is advisable to contact all renowned news services such as BBC, Reuters, CNN, etc, which have in the past investigated and aired reports about such issues. One can also spread the word by sending press releases to tech websites such as Boing Boing.

Remember, no one can take your right away to express yourself, and certainly not some idiot in the government who thinks he can control the internet, which has emerged as the most powerful medium of the 21st century. Viva le revolution!