[The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind] Bad Form Turkey!

I used to like Turkey. I've had fun in Istanbul, and it's a remarkable country that was, at the time I was there fifteen years ago, remarkably progressive. Unfortunately, much of that progress has gone out the window and Turkey is now becoming a full-blown theocratic regime where the free exchange of ideas is seemingly prohibited.

PZ Myers points out this morning that Adnan Oktar (aka Harun Yahya) whacko Islamic creationist (yeah. They have those retards polluting the Islamic faith as well) took a whimpering and bleating argument to a Turkish court to have more than a million Wordpress blogs critical of his creationist tome silenced and blocked. And, he won.

So, in other words, Turkey uses outright censorship to silence its critics. And, they side with a single maniacal zealot rather than its own people. And, where there once existed a progressive nation headed for inclusion in the European Union, there is now a fascist, theocratic state that as far as I'm concerned deserves nothing but scorn and ridicule.

To make matters worse, Oktar took his chest-thumping madness and gloated to Wordpress users about this victory. And, the blogs you see listed below are also on the to-be-censored list. I think it would be a nice message to send to the idiots that be in Turkey if people copy and paste the URLs into a blog entry as a show of support to the bloggers there who have essentially been silenced as a result of one silly madman's inability to handle criticism.

http://adnanoktar.wordpress.com
http://adnanoktarveislam.wordpress.com/
http://fitikado.wordpress.com
http://oktarbabuna.wordpress.com
http://adnancilar.wordpress.com/
http://adnanoktarveislam.wordpress.com/
http://whoisharunyahya.wordpress.com/
http://adnanoktargercekleri.wordpress.com/
http://quiestharunyahya.wordpress.com/
http://harunyahyaarabic.wordpress.com/
http://safsataciharunyahya.wordpress.com/
http://savsatalaracevap.wordpress.com/

I think PZ Myers put it best:

It sure would be a shame if someone echoed all those urls, and these anti-creationist blogs got more publicity and attention because of a stunt by Adnan Oktar, now wouldn't it?

It is easy to treat this as a joke and an amazing act of pig-headed stupidity by a creationist, but we shouldn't forget the scary part: a government with a pious judiciary was rather easily inclined to endorse mass, indiscriminate censorship on the whim of an evil clown.

P.S. Here's a way to get around the block — you can still read and post to Wordpress blogs in Turkey if you use OpenDNS. Spread the word.

-DP

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Posted By Dan to The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind at 8/20/2007 09:55:00 AM