Articles On Information: YouTube and Sites That Published Hostage Photo

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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">ISTANBUL
 — As a hostage crisis at the central courthouse gripped this city last 
week, a photograph coursing through social media conveyed the situation 
more concisely than any words: a beret-wearing militant, face obscured 
by a red scarf, holding a gun to the head of a well-known prosecutor.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">After an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/01/world/europe/turkish-extremists-abduct-prosecutor-from-istanbul-courthouse.html" title="Times article">evening raid</a>
 by Turkish special forces ended in a shootout, leaving the two militant
 hostage-takers and the hostage dead, the debate that ensued was not 
over the wisdom of the raid but the publication of the photograph.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Prime
 Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called the outlets that circulated the 
photograph “tools of terrorist propaganda.” The day after the crisis, 
reporters representing Turkish newspapers that had published the 
photograph were barred from covering the prosecutor’s funeral in 
Istanbul.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">On
 Monday, the Turkish authorities went further: An Istanbul court issued a
 ruling blocking Twitter and YouTube, which the semiofficial Anadolu 
News Agency said had failed to remove images of the dead prosecutor, as 
well as 166 other websites that had distributed the photograph, 
including the individual pages of several prominent Turkish newspapers 
that contained it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="A photograph circulated on social media showing Mehmet Selim Kiraz, the prosecutor taken hostage and killed in Istanbul on Tuesday." data-mediaviewer-credit="via Reuters " data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/07/world/07Turkey/07Turkey-superJumbo.jpg" height="266" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/07/world/07Turkey/07Turkey-master315.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/07/world/07Turkey/07Turkey-master315.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
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                <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">A photograph circulated on social media showing Mehmet Selim Kiraz, the prosecutor taken hostage and killed in Istanbul on Tuesday.                                    Credit            via Reuters         </a></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Several Turkish newspapers chose to publish the photograph, and so, too, did some foreign outlets, including The New York Times.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ibrahim Kalin, the spokesman for <a class="meta-per" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/e/recep_tayyip_erdogan/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Recep Tayyip Erdogan.">Recep Tayyip Erdogan</a>, <a class="meta-loc" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/turkey/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" title="More news and information about Turkey.">Turkey</a>’s
 president, said in a news conference on Monday: “Media groups that 
should be acting responsibly in publishing these photos are almost doing
 the propaganda of a terrorist organization. And continuing to do so 
despite all warnings and criticisms is unacceptable.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Mr.
 Kalin continued: “For one moment, put yourself in the shoes of the 
family and children of our slain prosecutor. What would you gain by 
sharing that photo?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">He added, “There is an effort to present the demands within the context of a violation of freedoms. This is unacceptable.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
 photograph was first distributed over social media by the Revolutionary
 People’s Liberation Party-Front, a militant Marxist group that claimed 
responsibility for having carried out the attack.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
 any other country with a tradition of freedom of the press, the 
photograph might have set off a discussion within the news media about 
the ethics of publishing it. But in Turkey, where an intensified 
crackdown on expression has fueled discontent with the government, the 
tough reaction of the authorities has become another chapter in the 
long-running struggle between the state and the press.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Still, some experts said the decision to publish the photograph raised legitimate ethical questions.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ahmet
 Sik, a reporter at Cumhuriyet, a secular daily newspaper, and a former 
journalism professor at Bilgi University in Istanbul, said he believed 
the photograph should have been published but the prosecutor’s face 
should have been blurred, “because he was confined against his will and 
it’s important to respect his family.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Though
 Mr. Sik called the social media ban “disproportionate,” he said, “there
 are ethical problems with the fact that it was published in its 
original form.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">In a short statement, Twitter said, <a href="https://twitter.com/policy/status/585065372686143488" title="The post">on Twitter</a>,
 “We are aware of reports of interruption of our service in #Turkey, and
 we are working to restore access for our users as soon as possible.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
 an editorial after its reporter was banned from covering the 
prosecutor’s funeral, Hurriyet, a daily newspaper, wrote, “We think that
 a democracy with the freedom of the press cannot accommodate a prime 
minister allocating himself the authority to punish newspapers, 
correspondents, photojournalists and cameramen or be busy with the 
process of accreditation. This is more reminiscent of practices 
particular to Third World regimes.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Turkey
 has become one of the most aggressive censors of the Internet. Mr. 
Erdogan has called Twitter “the worst menace to society,” and last year 
Turkey <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/21/world/europe/turkish-officials-block-twitter-in-leak-inquiry.html" title="Times article">blocked Twitter</a>
 after it was used to disseminate leaked audio recordings that purported
 to implicate government officials in a corruption investigation. The 
government has also blocked websites that it regarded as an assault on 
Islamic values, including that of a Turkish atheist association and the 
Paris newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which published cartoons depicting the 
Prophet Muhammad and was targeted in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-paris-shooting.html" title="Times article">deadly attack</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Turkey’s
 crackdown on expression has further distanced the country from the 
European Union, which it has long aspired to join. In a message posted 
on Twitter on Monday, Carl Bildt, the former foreign minister and prime 
minister of Sweden, <a href="https://twitter.com/carlbildt/status/585067509696618496" title="Twitter post">wrote</a>, “Turkey is really damaging itself by laws that allow prosecutors to shut down Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Simply stupid.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
 the conclusion of its editorial, Hurriyet wrote: “We just want to do 
journalism. We do not want to face bans with policemen waiting on street
 corners, trying to prevent our colleagues from doing their work.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">“Furthermore, we will not let anyone question our love for the homeland.”</span></span></div>
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