The blocking of Wikipedia in Turkey deemed illegal by the Constitutional Court

The country's highest court finds that blocking access to the online encyclopedia decreed by the Turkish government in 2017 is a violation of freedom of expression.

It is a snub for the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and a victory for the defenders of individual freedoms. In Turkey, the Constitutional Court, the country's highest court, has declared Wikipedia's blockage illegal. This censorship was decreed in April 2017 on the grounds that the online encyclopedia would participate in a campaign to denigrate the country. At issue, two articles devoted to Turkey's involvement in the civil war ravaging Syria and its supposed support for terrorist organizations. 

The Wikimedia Foundation had filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in May 2019 and received the support of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović. It now remains for the decision of the Constitutional Court to be followed up. At the time of writing, the Turkey Blocks site, which tracks cases of digital censorship in Turkey, has not yet reported that access to Wikipedia has been restored.