The Ankara 6th Magistrate Criminal Court banned access to the kizilhack.org website, the Turkish site of the RedHack hackers group. The access ban was decreed on the same day the hackers group had forced access to servers of the Police Net (POLNET) and the Ankara Police Directorate. On 27 February, the court blocked access to the kizilhack.org website on the grounds of "administrative measures".
The court decision was based on catalogue crimes as mentioned in Law No. 5651, i.e. the Regulation of Publications on the Internet and Suppression of Crimes Committed by means of Such Publication.
Prof Yaman Akdeniz, lecturer at the Bilgi University School of Law, and Assoc. Prof Kerem Altıparmak, lecturer at the Ankara University Faculty of Political Sciences, evaluated the court decision for bianet. According to the experts, hacking is not included in the scope of the corresponding catalogue crimes of Law No. 5651. Hence, they drew attention to the fact that the access ban was unlawful.
"This cannot be included in the list of catalogue crimes"
Prof Akdeniz explained that the related law defined eight catalogue crimes.
"The crimes included in the scope of the law are encouraging suicide, sexual abuse of children, supplying drugs that are dangerous for health, and facilitation of the abuse of drugs, offering or promoting prostitution, unauthorized online gambling and betting and crimes against Atatürk".
None of these crimes was constituted on the site on subject, Akdeniz remarked. Thus, access to the redhack/kizilhack.org website could not be denied on the grounds of Law No. 5651.
"Access bans to websites can be based on two different laws in Turkey. One is Law No. 5651; the other one is Law No. 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works (copyright). Since kizilhack.org did not violate either, the access ban is contrary to the law", Akdeniz underlined.
"What if somebody appealed and claimed that the decision lacked a basis?"
Also in the opinion of Assoc. Prof Altıparmak, the actions of redhack.org are not covered by the scope of the eight catalogue crimes as defined in Law No. 5651.
"Actions like hacking are not included in the list of catalogue crimes because the law is more related to moral issues. Other fields were not considered".
Altıparmak added, "They took a precautionary decision but normally criminal procedures should be opened in this case because this is actually a measure of protection".
"A trial will probably not be opened because they will not be able to find the people [behind RedHack]. If they found them and opened a trial, this protection measure would be part of it".
Altıparmak noted that it was unlikely that any of the above mentioned steps were going to be taken. Instead, the decision on administrative measures was going to remain that way, he assumed.
"However, I am very curious what they would say if somebody appealed the decision by claiming that the decision lacked a basis related to Law No. 5651", Altıparmak indicated.
"Access ban is not a solution"
The Turkish web address kizilhack.org is currently automatically redirected to the English redhack.org website.
Akdeniz emphasized that the application of access bans was not enough to solve the emerging problems. Similar problems came up when videos of the National Movement Party (MHP) showed [politician] Deniz Baykal, the academic reminded.
"This law is inadequate anyways. It is contrary to its actual purpose and it is being used with the aim to censor certain websites. On behalf of democratization, new forward looking solutions must be found".
"In the end an access ban does not bring the problems to an end but an announcement is made with the contrary effect - even more people will get to know that such a website exists". (EKN)
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