Search results : 103

On 2 October 2014, the Turkish Constitutional Court (CC) held that the amendments to the Internet Act, Law No. 5651 (see IRIS 2007-7/32), which were adopted on 10 September 2014, are unconstitutional and therefore, must be annulled (for other recent decisions of the CC on freedom of expression and the Internet see IRIS 2014-7/33 and IRIS 2014-6/35). The controversial amendments, which were adopted as a part of an omnibus bill, introduced fundamental changes concerning internet data rendition. According to the amendments, the Telekomünikasyon İletişim Başkanlığı (Presidency of Telecommunication...

On 29 May 2014 the Turkish Constitutional Court decided the ban imposed by the regulatory authority of telecommunications Telekomünikasyon İletişim Başkanlığı (Presidency of Telecommunication and Communication - TIB), on blocking access to YouTube is a violation of freedom of expression. The YouTube ban was imposed by a TIB’s decision of 27 March 2014 in response to the posting of a two-part voice recording that purported to disclose a top-secret discussion by high-ranking State Officials about a strike inside Turkey's southern neighbor, Syria. While reasoning its decision, TIB stated that this...

Two cases that have been previously reported in IRIS, Perinçek v. Switzerland (see IRIS 2014-2/1) and Pentikäinen v. Finland (see IRIS 2014-4/2), were referred to the Grand Chamber on 2 June 2014. The consequence of the referrals is that neither the judgment of 17 December 2013 in Perinçek v. Switzerland, nor the judgment of 4 February 2014 in Pentikäinen v. Finland have become final. In its application of Article 43 of the Convention the panel of the Grand Chamber was of the opinion that both cases raise serious questions affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention, or concern...

On 2 April 2014 the Turkish Constitutional Court held that the decision of Presidency of Telecommunication and Communication (Telekomünikasyon İletişim Başkanlığı, herein after “TIB”), regulatory authority of telecommunications, on blocking access to Twitter infringed freedom of expression. The ban on Twitter was imposed by a PTC decision of 20 March 2014 on account of interference with personal rights and privacy of Turkish citizens. This decision was based on numerous injunctions for protection (koruma tedbiri) concerning some URL addresses in Twitter already given by different domestic courts....

In eight judgments of 25 March 2014 the European Court of Human Rights has once more found gross violations of the right to freedom of expression and information in Turkey. Each of the judgments concerns the criminal conviction for publishing declarations from an illegal armed organisation. The applicant in all of the eight cases is Hasan Bayar, the editor-in-chief of the Ülkede Özgür Gündem, a daily newspaper based in Istanbul. In 2004 the newspaper published a series of statements and articles expressing, in various ways, the positions of the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers’ Party), as well as statements...