Wikipedia Complains Turkey to European Court to Lift the Ban Imposed on it
Wikipedia Complains Turkey to European Court to Lift the Ban Imposed on it
Free encyclopedia on the net “Wikipedia” started on Thursday a new attempt to lift the ban imposed on it by Turkish government two years ago.
Wikimedia Foundation which directs electronic encyclopedia “Wikipedia”, prosecuted Turkey to European Court of Human Rights after it has been blocked by Turkish government.
The foundation was obliged to prosecute Turkey demanding lifting the ban imposed by Ankara two years ago after its failed attempts aimed at lifting it through local courts in Turkey.
“We take this procedure as a part of our ongoing commitment of knowledge and freedom of expression as basic rights for each person.” Wikimedia foundation said on its formal website.
It added that the ban imposed two years ago, violates freedom of expression guaranteed by article 10 of the European Convention.
Ankara banned the Wikipedia in April 2017 because of a text saying that “Turkey is a sponsored country for terrorist organizations included Al-Qaida and ISIL.”
The legal director of Wikimedia, Stephen Laporte, said that the government had demanded the removal of the two pages “without any formal explanation of the parts it claims to be illegal.”
Wikimedia responded to Ankara’s request saying that “Its rules allow for the re-release of the material to any user as long as it is in a neutral and accurate framework.”
A Turkish court had upheld the decision of keeping the ban, the foundation filed a lawsuit to the Constitutional Court, but didn’t decide the case within two years, according to a statement issued by Wikimedia.
Turkey has temporarily banned some social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
China has expanded the ban imposed on Wikipedia this month to contain all versions of languages, so it becomes the second country after Turkey doing that.
Chinese Wikipedia was the only banned version, but new ban includes other languages, too.
Katherine Maher said that the foundation doing its best in order to lift the ban in China, too.
NPA