Turkish court: Wikipedia's block in Turkey is unconstitutional; violation of freedom of expression

The court said on its website: It has ruled that freedom of expression under Article 26 of the constitution has been violated, by continuing to impose a ban on the Wikipedia website by the Turkish authorities.

The ruling opens the way to unblock the website, which has been in force since 2017 because of issues that Turkey found to have links with terrorist organizations and suspicious ties to extremists in Syria.

The Wikipedia Foundation, a non-profit organization, has applied to Turkey's highest court to challenge the ban.

"One of the sad problems is that we have expressed on every platform since day one that the whole Wikipedia blocking process was illegal," Wikipedia lawyer Jonk Gorkkinak wrote on Twitter.

Yaman Akdeniz, the lawyer who applied to the court as an employee, said: The ruling was passed by a majority of 10 to six members of the court.

Turkey blocked Wikipedia in April 2017, when the Communications Control Authority referred to a law allowing it to block access to websites deemed obscene, or a threat to national security.

In recent years, Turkey has temporarily blocked some social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, following major protests.

J.O