(prepared by Swiss Institute of Comparative Law for Council of Europe)
This is one of series of country reports prepared for the Council of Europe in 2015. Other countries' reports, and responses from national governments, are available here. The studies undertake to present the laws and, in so far as information is easily available, the practices concerning the filtering, blocking and takedown of illegal content on the internet.
(1) The 1st Criminal Court of Peace in Istanbul issued a content removal and blocking order against Twitter, Facebook and YouTube according to a request of the Chief Public Prosecutor of the Terror and Organized Crime Investigation Bureau. The Prosecutor Office demanded that the images of the public prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz held hostage at gunpoint will not be used anywhere on electronic platforms. Mr. Mehmet Selim Kiraz later died of the injuries he suffered during an attempt of the Turkish special forces to rescue him from the kidnappers. Possibly, 166 website were affected by the court order, including international newspaper websites such as The Independent, The Mirror, and Tgcom24 and major Turkish news channels and newspapers. (2) The decision demanded the removal of the content and ordered the website...
The Turkish Constitutional Court decided that TIB's blocking of the video sharing platform YouTube was unlawful and should have been be lifted as it violated Article 26 of the Turkish Constitution (freedom of expression) and individual rights. The decision followed a petition promoted by a number of legal scholars, Youtube, and civil rights activists. Akdeniz and Altıparmak drafted the petition stressing that the YouTube access ban not only obstructed freedom of expression, but also curtailed people's right to obtain information..
The Court in Ankara ordered TIB to stay the execution of a blocking order banning access to YouTube in Turkey. Later, upon claim of the Prosecution Office of the same court, YouTube was newly banned.
The Court finally ruled to unblock access to the popular video-sharing website YouTube, after initially ordering a temporary measure to reinstate the ban as per the prosecution’s request. (1) Access to YouTube was initially blocked on March 27, 2014 by an order of the Presidency of Telecommunications and Communication (TİB), a few hours after recordings of a key security meeting on Syria leaked online. TIB's ban was unilaterally ordered by TIB without being supported by a judicial decision. (2) Initially, a local court in the Ankara’s Gölbaşı district justified the ban on the grounds of a law incriminating insults to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. (3) On April 4, the Gölbaşı Court of Peace ordered that access to the website be unblocked, following an appeal from the Union of the Turkish Bar...