Mark Williamson a écrit:
Hello Anthere,
It has already been resolved that most likely censorship of the
Kurdish Wikipedia has been by individual netcafes, and not by the
government.
Do you have facts to assert this ?
I did not see anything else than hearsay.
Because it isn't the government but rather
individual businesses, this
can be dealt with a little bit less cautiously perhaps because their
power is much less, although cordial relations should of course be
maintained.
My recommendation is to write a formal letter (in Turkish) to the
netcafes where it has been reported and ask them if they have blocked
the Kurdish Wikipedia, and if so to please unblock it as it is not
harmful and in fact would be beneficial to their business.
HOWEVER, and that is a big "however", editing ku.wikipedia while in
Turkey is still a possible risk: recently, a man was sent to prison
just for editing the Kurdish DMOZ (Open Directory Project).
The AI involvement I recommended was not related to Wikipedia or any
sort of basic censorship, which is in my opinion a restriction on
freedom of information but not a violation of basic human rights.
Instead, it was related to this arrest of a man for editing the
Kurdish ODP, which is a severe violation of basic human rights.
For Turkey to take such an action right now, when the eye of the world
is on them to improve human rights (for EU membership), the
imprisonment of a man for editing the Kurdish ODP is certainly
something that warrants attention.
However I think I should make it very clear that I think any such
involvement should be independent of Wikipedia or ODP officially, even
if some editors are involved.
Mark
Independant ? Hmmmm, somehow, I think that any letter send with as a
signature the name of an editor and the link to his user page, is not
exactly what I would call independant.
Give it time.
Anthere
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 01:21:58 -0800 (PST), Anthere
<anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi Erdal,
Before anything, I would like to recommand you to very very well check your facts. But I
see that you are trying to do this. Have some feedback from all turkish editors. Ask some
friends in Turkye to check as well. Perhaps Erik Zachte could help you on checking
statistics ? Or another developer might ? (Hashar, can you help on this ?)
The second point is that I would recommand low profile *as much as* possible.
I think making major reports to inform anyone on the planet that Turkish government is
doing censorship or that there are multiple individual moves in that direction is a *very
bad* idea. Same for starting an email campaign and call for help from Amnesty
International. Please, do not do this. Avoid threatening the government as well, as you
are NOT sure it is the government who might be responsible of it (you are not even sure
there is censorship, doubly less for knowing who is the instigator).
Generally, we are not here to say what is good and what is not good, or how authorities
should manage their countries. We try to demonstrate that freedom of information is better
in the long run, but we are not an advocacy group supporting human rights.
If you "attack" the government, and it is responsible of the current situation,
you do not let room for it to politely claim it was all a mistake, apology and restore
full access. You do not let room to keep face, you contribute to escalating a conflict.
If you "attack" the government and it is not responsible of the current
situation, you will upset it toward us, and this will not have good consequences in the
long run.
Whatever the government, we do not want to be expressely seen as an advocacy group saying
what they do is bad, we should rather stay low profile, and remind that we have a strong
neutrality policy and are not taking sides.
If you really feel you have to make it known what is going on, I think you should
advertise it just as you would in a wikipedia article. Just report facts (decrease of
access as shown in recent statistics; report from xxx wikipedians that they cant access
the site anymore. Cite your sources if you can (people is tough, but stats do not fear
anything). Stick to facts, and do not draw any public conclusion. Do not make a long rant
on how horrendous it is that censorship exist, that human rights are not respected. Just
let the reader make its own opinion on why access is impaired and where it could come
from. You might indeed mention in the article that it might be a temporary technical
problem.
In short, let a back door so that the situation can resolve without getting in a war
necessarily and upsetting people.
Anthere
Wikimedia Foundation
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