Hi everyone,
As many of you will recall, in 2019 we filed a petition with the European
Court of Human Rights
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/05/23/wikimedia-foundation-petitions-the-european-court-of-human-rights-to-lift-the-block-of-wikipedia-in-turkey/>
to lift the nearly three-year block of Wikipedia in Turkey. While the block
was lifted in 2020 following a ruling
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/12/26/turkish-constitutional-court-rules-that-the-two-and-a-half-year-block-of-wikipedia-is-unconstitutional/>
from the Turkish Constitutional Court, our case proceeded in order to
evaluate whether the Turkish law used to issue the block violated free
expression rights. Our objective was to utilize the case to further our
efforts to protect the Wikimedia projects and free knowledge more broadly
from censorship going forward.
Today, the European Court of Human Rights announced
<https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#%7B%22itemid%22:[%22003-7293454-9940966%22]%7D>
that it is dismissing the case, while still recognizing the importance of
our concerns at the time of our filing. It cited three reasons for this
dismissal: 1) the block was lifted in 2020; 2) the block was deemed a human
rights violation by the Turkish Constitutional Court in its December 2019
ruling
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/12/26/turkish-constitutional-court-rules-that-the-two-and-a-half-year-block-of-wikipedia-is-unconstitutional/>;
and 3) the Court believes the Turkish Constitutional Court capable of
effectively
addressing future problems related to violations of free expression online.
Additionally, the Court provided guidance that the over two years taken by
the Turkish Constitutional Court to address the violation may in the future
be seen as an excessive delay for governments to take action in cases of
website blocking.
Because our primary goal when we filed the case was to restore access to
Wikipedia in Turkey, we understand the Court’s decision and still see this
outcome as a win. The Court acknowledged a human rights violation in our
case, and affirmed that restoring access was an important step in
addressing the violation.
However, we also recognize that this ruling comes at a time when access to
knowledge continues to be under threat around the world, including in
Russia where authorities recently demanded the removal of content on
Wikipedia
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2022/03/03/wikimedia-foundation-stands-with-communities-defending-free-knowledge/>
related to the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine. We will continue
to work with you all to defend the right of everyone to freely access and
participate in knowledge, today and into the future.
Read more about the decision in our statement
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2022/03/24/european-court-of-human-rights-case-dismissed/>
and help amplify the message using our social media resources on Diff
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/03/24/european-court-of-human-rights-dismisses-case-about-block-of-wikipedia-in-turkey/>
.
Best,
Leighanna Mixter
--
Leighanna Mixter (she/her)
Senior Legal Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
San Francisco, California, USA (UTC -7)
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