Banned 63 times in five years, Sendika.org news site opened to access

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The court that blocked access to Sendika.org news site has removed the block order, implementing a Constitutional Court decision from March 11.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on October 19 requested Turkey's defense after it had failed to implement the top court decision and gave time to the country to present its defense till January 8, 2021.

Following the request, Gölbaşı Penal Judgeship of Peace in the capital city of Ankara removed the block order today (October 28). It also removed block orders on 118 websites and social media accounts, including the websites of Özgür Gündem and Dicle News Agency, which were shut down following the 2016 coup attempt.

The Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) opened Sendika.org to access after the court's decision. Sendika.org had been banned for 1,921 days.

The first access block was imposed on the website by the Telecommunications Communication Presidency (TİB) on July 25, 2015. The site was banned 63 times and was using "sendika64.org" to bypass the bans.

What happened?

In the face of a series of access blocks imposed on the news website since 2015 and the failure of the Constitutional Court to examine the file for almost five years, the attorneys of sendika.org applied to the ECtHR on February 10, 2020, and argued that Article 10 (Freedom of expression), 13 (Right to an effective remedy) and 18 (Limitation on use of restrictions on rights) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) were violated.

Doğukan Tonguç Cankurt, one of the attorneys of sendika.org, has indicated that it is the first time a question has been directed to Turkey over a possible breach of the Article 18 of the ECHR by access blocks.

The Constitutional Court examined the application of sendika.org after its attorneys applied to the ECtHR and gave a ruling of right violation on March 11, 2020. While the top court sent the file back to the local court, the Gölbaşı Penal Judgeship of Peace, for the elimination of the consequences of the right violation in question in a retrial, the local court defied this decision.

Following its decision dated March 2020, the Constitutional Court gave another decision about the access blocks on sendika.org by combining seven individual applications and ruled on September 15 that the freedom of expression and press of sendika.org had been violated. (HA/VK)