European Court of Human Rights Has Decided to Expedite Case on Online
Censorship Brought Against the Government of Turkey for Blocking Wikipedia
Turkey Began Censoring Wikipedia in 2017
22nd July 2019 — The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has decided to
expedite a case brought by the Wikimedia Foundation
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/05/23/wikimedia-foundation-petiti…>
against the government of Turkey for blocking Wikipedia in the country. The
case contends that the longstanding ban amounts to impermissible censorship
and limits peoples' fundamental rights to free expression and access to
knowledge.
The ban was imposed by the Turkish government in April 2017. The Wikimedia
Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia and supports access to free knowledge
worldwide, announced its petition with the ECHR in May 2019 only after
attempting to engage with Turkish authorities in discussions and
challenging the ban in Turkish courts.
Established by the European Convention on Human Rights, the ECHR is an
international human rights court which allows individuals to address
violations of their rights. Turkey is a long-standing party to the
Convention. The speed with which the Court has communicated our case is
unusual, as cases before the ECHR can take months or even years to proceed
to this stage.
Recognizing the considerable public importance of the case, the Court has
decided to give the case “priority treatment” within two months of filing.
In June 2009, the ECHR adopted a priority policy with a view to speeding up
processing and adjudication of the most important, serious, and urgent
cases before it. The case has the potential to set precedent for future
decisions in the area of government censorship. The Government of Turkey
now has until late October to submit its observations in the case to the
Court.
“Wikipedia has been blocked in Turkey for more than two years. Free and
thriving societies are built on free and open discourse,” said Katherine
Maher, CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation. “The ECHR’s decision to fast-track
our case is a recognition of the threat of government censorship to our
most fundamental rights.”
The case falls to be considered at a time when censorship and government
control of the internet is a growing issue around the world.
“Wikipedia was built on the principle that access to free information can
transform people’s lives,” said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. “This
court case has the potential to limit regressive abuses of power and create
a precedent to curb governments’ ability to limit their citizens’ access to
knowledge.”
Today, Wikipedia is one of the most widely-accessed sources of knowledge in
the world. It is read 6,000 times every second, and articles are edited,
improved, and debated daily by a community of more than 250,000 volunteers
from across the globe. More than 85 percent of those articles are in
languages other than English, which includes the Turkish Wikipedia’s more
than 300,000 articles, written by Turkish-speaking volunteers for
Turkish-speaking people.
To learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation’s work visit:
wikimediafoundation.org. To advance the free knowledge movement and show
your support for ending the ban on Wikipedia in Turkey, share your thoughts
on Twitter with #ForFreeKnowledge.
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Wikimedia Community Ireland
Chair - Shannon Eichelberger
Project Coordinator - Rebecca O'Neill
Online: Wikimedia Community Ireland <http://wikimedia.ie>
On Twitter: @WikimediaIE <https://twitter.com/WikimediaIE>
On Facebook: Wikimedia Ireland <https://www.facebook.com/WikimediaIreland>
On Instagram: wikimediaie <https://www.instagram.com/wikimediaie/>
On Meetup: Wikimedia Community Ireland Meetup
<https://www.meetup.com/Wikimedia-Community-Ireland-Meetup/>