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The Turkish Data Protection Authority (DPA) was established in 2016 as a result of a referendum held in 2010, known as the “2010 Constitutional Amendments Package.” Since 2016, the Turkish DPA has been developing both organisational and legal frameworks to ensure the effective safeguarding of data protection rights in the country. In the course of this, the DPA has ruled on several cases, and those rulings have been now published in a summary on the official DPA website, as follows: - A data subject applied to the DPA requesting that his/her name be removed from an online newspaper’s opinion column...

Under Presidential Decree No.14 published in the Official Gazette on 24 July 2018, a new department under the Turkish Presidency has been established. The department holds duties related to the publicising of Turkish government policies and the activities of the President, both within the country and abroad. The department is responsible for disseminating precise information about activities concerning events in or related to Turkey. The department’s duties consist of: - Ensuring cooperation and coordination between public institutions and NGOs regarding the publicisation of activities in Turkey...

Article 82 of Law No. 7103 on Amendments to Tax Laws and to Some Laws and Executive Decrees amending the Law on Radio and Television Establishment and Broadcasting Services (Radyo ve Televizyonların Kuruluş ve Yayın Hizmetleri Hakkında Kanuna) gives new powers to the Turkish Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK). Under this article, RTÜK will become responsible for the licensing of providers offering online broadcasting services. The broadcasting service providers who already have a licence for their television or radio broadcasting activities may now use their licences for the Internet broadcasting...

On 20 March 2018, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered two important judgments in cases brought by two prominent journalists detained in Turkey after the attempted coup d’état of 15 July 2016. In both cases it found a violation of the journalists’ right to freedom of expression. The ECtHR clarified that the existence of a “public emergency threatening the life of the nation” cannot serve as a pretext for limiting the freedom of political debate, which is at the very core of the concept of a democratic society. Even in a state of emergency the Contracting States must bear in mind...

On 11 January 2018, the Constitutional Court of Turkey ruled upon constitutional complaints that the detention on remand of two journalists, MA and ŞA, for more than 16 months without convincing evidence was a violation of their right to freedom of press/expression and their right to liberty and security. The court rejected the rest of the complaints that they had also been the victims of a violation of their fair trial rights and of ill-treatment. Constitutional complaint procedure was introduced in Turkey with an amendment in the constitution in 2010. By empowering the Constitutional Court to...