PARIS
Civil rights group Reporters Without Borders (RWB) have called for Turkey's President Abdullah Gul to block a new Internet law that they say would be "a disaster" for online freedom.
"It (the new law) allows the government to censor the Internet even more extensively, to monitor users and to take control of Internet Service Providers and other technical intermediaries," said RWB secretary-general, Christophe Deloire.
"The degree of cyber-censorship was already worrying in Turkey, but these amendments take it to new level. We urge President Abdullah Gul not to sign them into law as they violate the constitution and international statement conventions that Turkey has signed," he added.
Turkey's communications minister has rejected accusations that the legislation will authorize wide scale Internet censorship, saying that the law granting official cyberspace controller the authority to block access to websites will actually make it harder to apply censorship.
"We are not putting a ban on the Internet, we are getting rid of the previous mechanism which could easily ban the Internet," Lutfi Elvan.
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