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Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak reported last month that a controversial law entitled Penal Code Article 301 will be used to ban online gaming in the country. The law was initially introduced to combat indecent broadcasts but its powers have been extended and it will now be used to stop people from wagering on the web.
The Information Technology Security Agency will now have the task of blocking broadcasts and offending sites. Some in Turkey are calling this initiative a “censorship of the internet” according to the newspaper report.The bill was aimed at combating child abuse on the internet but now the Agency will have to spend much of its time monitoring suspected gaming sites and serving court orders on internet service providers. Penal Code Article 301 is controversial because of its widening application regarding internet offences such as “Denigrating Turkishness, the republic and the institutions and organs of the state,” under which many free thinkers including Nobel Prize winning novelist Orhan Pamuk, have been prosecuted. Article 299 makes insulting the president a crime punishable by between one and four years' imprisonment. If the crime is committed via the media then the punishment can be extended by almost a third. Broadcasts made over the internet in contravention of Article 301 “Denigrating Turkishness, the republic, the institutions and organs of the state,” can attract sentences between six months and three years in prison.
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