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Turkey's high court on Thursday said the government's two-year Wikipedia ban violates freedom of expression in a ruling that could pave the way for access to the online encyclopedia to be restored.
The justices on the country's constitutional court ruled 10-6 in favor of Wikipedia, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. The government has not commented on the ruling.
“Today’s decision from the Turkish Constitutional Court is an important step for the right to knowledge," the Wikipedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, said in a statement. "We join the people of Turkey, and the millions of readers and volunteers who rely on Wikipedia around the world, to welcome this important recognition for universal access to knowledge."
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Turkey's highest court ruled Thursday that the government's ban on Wikipedia violated freedom of expression. (Wikipedia)
Access to the community-maintained site was blocked in April 2017 after it refused to remove content at the request of Turkish government officials who claimed Ankara was being portrayed as a supporter of the Islamic State and other terror groups.
Entries said Turkish government officials were involved in oil trading with ISIS and that Turkey sponsored the group.
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Wikipedia viewed the request as censorship. Ankara accused the site of being part of a "smear campaign" and blocked it on all language editions under a far-reaching law that allows the government to censor content it deems a national security threat.
Wikipedia petitioned the constitutional court in May 2017 after talks with Turkish officials failed. This year, the Wikipedia Foundation took Turkey to the European Court of Human Rights in response to the ban. Turkey routinely ignores verdicts by the court, choosing to pay court-ordered fines instead, the Guardian reported.
A response from Turkey to the court is due in January, The New York Times reported. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales addressed Thursday's ruling in a tweet: "Welcome back, Turkey!"
It was not clear when access to the site would be restored. Many Turkish people have used other methods to get around the ban, such as VPNs and mirror sites, according to the Guardian.
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Turkey has escalated crackdowns on media freedoms under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, following a failed 2016 coup attempt. The constitutional court ruled in 2014 that similar bans against YouTube and Twitter violated the freedom of expression.
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