I'd have been surprised if they had been unblocked, but, as I said, the constitutional win is still important.
Mike
On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 11:32 AM John Erling Blad jeblad@gmail.com wrote:
Both en.wikipedia.org and tr.wikipedia.org are still blocked.
On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 10:44 PM Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
Great news! Even if the court's decision isn't implemented by the current Turkish government, it is important to have established that the block
was
a violation of constitutional principles.
Mike
On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 4:40 PM Katherine Maher kmaher@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi all,
I have some good news to share with you all -- after nearly three
years of
Wikipedia being blocked in Turkey, the Turkish Constitutional Court has ruled that this is unconstitutional. We hope that access will be
restored
soon in light of this ruling, and will keep you updated as we hear
further
developments.
Please join me in congratulating the Wikimedia community in Turkey, the millions of Wikipedia readers in Turkey, and all of those struggling
under
censorship around the world, on this critical affirmation of the fundamental right to knowledge.
Imposed in April of 2017, the block has prevented the 80+ million
people
in Turkey from accessing and participating in all language versions of Wikipedia. It also prevented members of our community in Turkey from
freely
engaging with the projects and impaired our movement’s global effort to represent the sum of all knowledge.
As many of you might recall, we had filed an urgent application to the European Court of Human Rights in April 2019. Our petition on the
legality
of the access ban is currently before the ECHR and we are evaluating
our
next steps based on this latest ruling.
A team from within and outside the Wikimedia Foundation has been
working
diligently since the block was instituted to restore full access in
Turkey.
Throughout this process, we have been guided by our Wikimedia values
and a
belief that Wikipedia must be accessible in its entirety; with no censorship of any kind to be tolerated. We worked closely with
Wikimedia
community members in Turkey to understand and act in a way that
reflected
their needs, wishes, and local context. We also benefited greatly from conversations with experts around the world.
We will be posting more information on the Foundation website soon. In
the
meantime, I wanted to offer my sincere appreciation and admiration to
the
members of our community in Turkey -- you have shown great integrity, courage, and dedication. Your unwavering commitment to the Wikimedia projects, despite the obstacles placed in front of you, is an
inspiration
to us all.
Thank you to every Wikimedia community member around the world who
showed
support for the Turkish community. Your commitment to our sense of community and the strength of our global movement is an inspiration.
Finally, I would also like to thank the many Foundation staff and
others
involved over the past months for your exceptional diligence, professionalism, and tact in handling a delicate situation.
While this is a favorable ruling for our case in Turkey, it remains to
be
seen whether the Turkish government will indeed restore access in
Turkey.
And serious threats to free knowledge remain around the world. Today's ruling is a reminder of the work we still left to do.
But at this moment, let us celebrate this important recognition that
the
right to information is fundamental to every human, with happy
anticipation
of the return of Turkey to our global community of editors, readers,
and
knowledge seekers.
Katherine
--
Katherine Maher (she/her)
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/
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