[Wikipedia-l] Kurdish Wikipedia blocked in Iran (Censorship)

Thu Nov 10 22:09:53 UTC 2005

Hi,

my friend in Iran confirmed that at least two ISP in Teheran block the 
Kurdish Wikipedia (http://ku.wikipedia.org). The identical message on 
both is:

Access Denied!

This page will not be accessible for the reason that in our database it 
has been assinged to the category of blocked contents .

In the event the URL does not contain materials that are forbidden by 
laws, please fill this form out then hit send.

However, one user from another part of Iran was able to reach it. The 
mentioned form has meanwhile been filled and sent, but there is no 
reaction yet.

I think that even a partial censoship against Wikipedia is of interest 
for the community. The Kurdish Wikipedia is frequently attacked by 
political vandalizm of Turkish writing users, who want to see all Kurds 
"wiped out", but this is relatively easy to handle. There have been 
reports before that Internet Cafe owners in Turkey are forced to install 
software that blocks Kurdish content, including Wikipedia. This is the 
first time we hear about such an incident from Iran.

Regards,
Erdal