Turkey's top court rules that a two-year ban on Wikipedia violates freedom of expression; it remains unclear when access to the site will be restored
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey's highest court on Thursday ruled in favor of Wikipedia, saying the Turkish government's two-year ban …
Context & Ripple Effects
Turkey blocked Wikipedia in April 2017 under a law framed around national security, and the site has been inaccessible there ever since. In May, the Wikimedia Foundation took the dispute to the European Court of Human Rights after domestic channels failed.
Thursday's ruling by Turkey's top court that the two-year ban violates freedom of expression hands Wikimedia a domestic legal victory and puts the ball back with the government — which decides whether and when to implement it.
First-order effects
- Turkish readers and editors still cannot reach Wikipedia until the government acts on the ruling; the court decided the legality of the block, not its immediate end.
- Wikimedia gains a binding domestic judgment that the block was unlawful, strengthening both its position inside Turkey and its pending European Court of Human Rights case.
Second-order effects
- The ruling creates a test case other blocked platforms and publishers in Turkey can cite, forcing the government to either restore access or defend the block against its own highest court.
- It lands just as Turkey prepares new social media rules on identity verification and age restrictions, raising the stakes for how much discretion regulators retain over what citizens can access.
Third-order effects
- If courts keep overruling national-security-based blocks, censorship in Turkey shifts from an administrative act to one requiring ongoing legal justification — a structural check on executive control of information access.
- For global platforms, the episode shows litigation at both national and supranational levels can unwind state blocks, but only on the timetable of the blocking government.
The trend: State control of information access is increasingly being contested through courts rather than negotiated away, with national constitutional rulings becoming leverage in supranational human-rights cases.