Court announced in the hearing on 29 February 2008, that testimonies obtained through unlawful means may not be considered as evidence based on article 148 of the criminal code. Oktar was convicted of creating an illegal organization for personal gain. He and 17 other members of his organisation were sentenced to three years in prison. Oktar appealed the verdict. In May 2010, the Court of Appeals overturned the conviction and dismissed the charges. Blocking of Internet sites Since 2007, Oktar has successfully had the Turkish government block public access to several websites. In April 2007, Oktar filed a libel lawsuit against the owners of Ekşi Sözlük, a virtual community similar to everything2. The court reviewed the complaint and ordered the service provider to close the site to public access. The site was temporarily suspended so the entry on Oktar could be expunged and locked. Then access to Süper Poligon, a news website, was also restricted following Oktar's complaint. In August 2007, Oktar got a Turkish court to block WordPress.com throughout Turkey. His lawyers argued that blogs on WordPress.com contained libelous material, which WordPress.com was unwilling to remove. Edip Yüksel, a Turkish writer who knew Oktar in the 1980s, had his own website banned in Turkey due to Oktar's complaints. In addition, Yüksel wrote a Turkish-language book, The Cult of the Antichrist, but has yet to find "a publisher willing to brave Mr. Oktar's lawyers." On 19 September 2008, a Turkish court banned Internet users in Turkey from viewing the official Richard Dawkins website after Oktar claimed its contents were defamatory, blasphemous and insulting to religion, arguing that his personality was violated by this site. The ban was lifted on 8 July 2011. In September 2008, a complaint by Oktar led to the banning of the internet site of the Union of Education and Scientific Workers. This was followed by a block of the country's third-biggest newspaper site, Vatan, in October. See also List of Mahdi claimants List of longest prison sentences References Books External links Taner Edis: Harun Yahya and Islamic Creationism (2003) 1956 births People from Ankara Living people 20th-century apocalypticists 21st-century apocalypticists Antisemitism in Turkey Anti-Masonry Anti-Zionism Cult leaders Holocaust deniers Muslim creationists People with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder People with schizophrenia Religious biographers Self-declared mahdi Turkish anti-communists Turkish conspiracy theorists Turkish Muslims Turkish prisoners and detainees Turkish religious leaders