Turkish hackers are threatening to unleash a wave of cyberattacks against French Web sites after lawmakers in Paris voted to approve a law that would ban the denial of the Armenian genocide.
Hackers have already assailed dozens of French Web sites, including that of Valerie Boyer, the French politician who introduced the law that could punish genocide deniers with prison time.
Some attacks have been blamed on a hacking group known as AyYildiz, which says it fights for Turkish values.
“AyYildiz has nothing against the French, but if this carries on, there will be far more serious attacks from many groups,” said Ishak Telli, a spokesman for the group.
The French lower house approved the law on Dec. 22 and the Senate is expected to vote on it by the end of this month.
If it is enacted, anyone denying that the 1915-1917 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turk forces amounted to genocide could face prison time.
Telli said hackers could initiate attacks causing millions of euros of damage.
“You can close commercial and banking sites,” Telli said. “You can take down government Web sites ... The AyYildiz team has that capability.”
Ankara reacted angrily when the French National Assembly passed the bill, quickly freezing political and military ties with the country. Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Paris, but he has returned to monitor the Senate’s handling of the bill.
Starting in 1915, during World War I, many thousands of Armenians died in Ottoman Turkey. Armenia says 1.5 million were killed in a genocide where many perished after being forced to march into the desert without adequate supplies.
Turkey says about 500,000 died in fighting after Armenians sided with Russian invaders.
France recognized the killings as a genocide in 2001, but the new bill would punish anyone who denies this with a year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros (US$60,000).
Modern Turkey is still very -sensitive about the issue and it has accused France of attacking freedom of expression and free historical inquiry.
Akincilar, another Turkish hacking group, was blamed for attacking Boyer’s site and that of French-Armenian politician Patrick Devedjian.
Such lawmakers would do better to “study Ottoman history,” the group said in a video.
“Our goal is to expose the arrogance shown by France when it legislates in its own parliament about the affairs of other countries,” the group said.
Web hacking is illegal in Turkey and hackers run the risk of a prison sentence, but for those who do it, hijacking a Web site attacking Turkish beliefs and morals is not a crime and no nationalist hacker has been targeted by authorities, said Ozgur Uckan, a new media expert at Istanbul Bilgi University.
“This type of hacking isn’t really punished, but if they attack Turkish government sites, the police will do everything in their power ... It’s a kind of double standard,” Uckan said.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the