Hello!
I am writing to provide an update on the status of the petition that the
Wikimedia Foundation filed with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)
in May to lift the more than two-year block of Wikipedia in Turkey.[1]
As you may know, many petitions brought before the ECHR are not granted a
hearing by the Court, and, even when the hearing is granted, the process of
reaching a resolution can take years. We understood these considerations
when we filed the petition, but were hopeful that the Court would recognize
the public importance of the case.
The ECHR has acted extremely quickly in this case. On July 2, the Court
responded to the petition by giving the case “priority treatment”, and
sending official correspondence to us and to Turkish authorities with
notification of this designation. The Government of Turkey now has until
October 24 to respond by submitting their own observations on the case to
the Court. We feel this is a clear indication that the case is being taken
seriously.
You can read more information on the Wikimedia Foundation website:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/07/22/our-legal-case-against-turk…
We invite you to join us in sharing this news within your networks. You can
do so on social media by retweeting @Wikipedia and sharing messages of your
own. We have also posted a social media toolkit on Meta-Wiki with hashtags,
draft messages, and graphics (coming later today) for folks to utilize:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Unblock_campaigns
We are optimistic about this development and look forward to sharing any
future updates with you.
-greg
[1]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/05/23/wikimedia-foundation-petiti…
--
Gregory Varnum (pronouns - he/his/him)
Communications Strategist
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>