Former Turkish DMOZ Editor Draws 10 Months In Jail

makne writes "H. Ertas, a Turkish editor of the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org) has been sentenced to 10 months in prison after being found guilty of editing a category about the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). Ertas's lawyer, Suna Coskun, explained that his client had worked as a voluntary editor at the Open Directory Project during his studies at the Euphrat-University and had been responsible for the Kurdish category. At the same time he became interested in Kurds and undertook his own research into the subject. As a voluntary editor, he had sorted the directory submissions but could not be responsible for their content. Therefore there could be no penalty under international law, according to Coskun. His activities could in no way be understood as 'support for a terrorist organisation' and thus Ertas' release was appropriate. The court sentenced Ertas to 10 months in prison and a fine of 416 million Turkish lire ($293). The sentence is not eligible for probation." (Read on for more.)

By email, makne writes "I don't know the editor personally, but the editor was first arrested two years ago, then released on parole until now. Members of the editor community have tried to help him in any way they can, with no apparent success. The editor resigned from the ODP in 2002."

Makne also provided this link to a summary (from the Kurdish point of view) of earlier attempts to stifle Kurdish sites, including a campaign to have DMOZ's then-parent company Netscape remove the Kurdish category from DMOZ.

So tell me Billy

[lecithin]

So tell me Billy...you ever been in a Turkish prison camp?

New plan.

[dj245]

The court sentenced Ertas to 10 months in prison and a fine of 416 million Turkish lire ($293).

To make the absurd amounts of money that the litigius lawyers demand in court these days even more absurd, I say we convert all monetary demands to Turkish Lire. For example:
The RIAA today sued 793 more file-shares for between 2.83 and 5.67 Billion Turkish Lire each.

Re:Let me be the first

[krymsin01]

It would get out that NORWEIGIAN RAPPERS were making threats about George W. Bush? I didn't even know there were Norweigian rappers until this thread!

Re:Guys please!

[unitron]

"You have murdered quite a few curds yourselves."

After which we slaughtered numerous whey.

Re:New plan.

[Dachannien]

"Okay, then. We hold the world ransom for.... two hundred... fifty-five... quadrillion lire!"

Re:New plan.

[Anonymous Coward]

Turkey is going to use a new money unit after 01.01.2004 called YTL (Yeni Turk Lirasi) (New Turkish Lira). 1.000.000 TL will be 1 YTL. So who is making funny jokes about this ?

Re: We have that

[Alwin Henseler]

Ideally, I think we need a whole new *physical* layer Internet, separate from the existing Internet or Internet2 and devoid of participation by any and all governmental agents and (..) Oh well, I can dream of a freer world, can't I?

Already in place. It's called "mouth-to-mouth", "face to face", "meeting in person". 6 billion users worldwide, very scalable, accessible to anyone who speaks the local lingo, free as in beer and free as in freedom, anonymous if desired (you don't know me, I don't know you, or secretly slip a note in someone's pocket), tamper-proof, available 24/7, works without electric power, earthquake and flood resistant, and can be secured very well against wiretapping.

Drawbacks: moderate efficiency, high latency, low bandwidth, machine-readability stinks. Use when non-machine readable information exchange is desired, or when all else fails.

Re:My grandfather was an IRA terrorist

[jdcook]

"the prima donna example is of the Allies during the war: fire-bombing German cities not to directly disrupt their war effort, but to terrorise the populous and kill factory workers. Not only did it not work, but few think of it as terrorism even today as the victims were so dehumanised."

"prima donna"? They dropped ballet dancers on Dresden?