A Muslim creationist has succeeded in getting the website of leading atheist Richard Dawkins banned in Turkey after he complained that its contents were blasphemous.
Internet users living in Turkey are now subject to a court order which prohibits them from accessing the popular site richarddawkins.net . The court in Istanbul issued its judgement after author Adnan Oktar claimed Atlas of Creation, a book he has written which contests arguments on evolution, had been defamed on Dawkins' website. (TimesOnline, 19 September 2008)
Defamed? How can you defame a book that is absurd?1
It shouldn't be surprising that Harun Yahya resorts to the courts to keep people from seeing what a fool he is. Just last year, he got Turkish courts to ban many Wordpress blogs that had been critical of him. What's disappointing is that Turkish courts could be so easily fooled.
Mr Oktar's press assistant, Seda Aral, said: "We are not against freedom of speech or expression but you cannot insult people. We found the comments hurtful. It was not a scientific discussion. There was a line and the limit has been passed. We have used all the legal means to stop this site. We asked them to remove the comments but they did not." (The Telegraph, 19 September 2008)Oh, really. You can't insult people, huh? Well, here are a couple of quotes from page 621 of the Atlas:
Darwinism is at the root of various ideologies of violence that have spelled disaster to mankind in the 20th century.
No matter what ideology they may espouse, those who perpetrate terror over the world are, in reality, Darwinists. Darwinism is the only philosophy that places a value on - and thus encourages - conflict. (caption below a photo of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001)
1defame (transitive verb): to harm the reputation of by libel or slander. Since it's not libel when the statements are true, you can't defame someone by calling him a fool when he is a fool, and Harun Yahya's a fool..
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