The Turkish parliament will vote on Wednesday on Article 24 of the Radio and Television Law which is mainly about including Internet crimes to the context of crimes committed via media, reported the Turkish Daily News.
Although experts have accepted the fact that there is a lack of legal regulations for the Internet in Turkey, they argue that the Internet has totally different characteristics from media institutions, said the paper.
Experts warned that this development may harm freedom of expression and freedom of thought in the Internet environment.
If passed, Internet portals should send two copies of their daily pages to the regional administration, said the paper, noting that technically, this is not possible.
“Internet news portals update information frequently as events develop,” an expert told the paper.
The chairman of the parliamentary Information Technologies Group, Riza Aktas said that this move would have an adverse effect on the Internet, a vital part of the efforts to become an "information society."
Aktas said that the parliamentary Information Technologies Group was made up of deputies as well as Internet experts in order to collect data needed to make laws about the Internet and to give advice to the lawmakers.
"The European Union member countries have been concentrating on projects in order to create a healthy information society since 1999. In this conjuncture, it is wrong for Turkey to include sanctions about the Internet in the law, creating unnecessary bureaucratic paperwork and financial burdens," Aktas said – Albawaba.com
