Turks regain access to Wikipedia after court order

The Turkish blockade of Wikipedia has been lifted. At the end of last year, the Turkish Constitutional Court already ruled that this blockade is illegal and contrary to the principles of a democratic constitutional state, but the ban was not lifted immediately.

The Wikimedia Foundation reports that on Wikipedia’s 19th anniversary, it received reports that service providers are actively restoring access to Wikipedia in Turkey. On Wednesday, the Turkish Constitutional Court released its full ruling from December last year, stating that the blockade violates freedom of expression and must be lifted immediately. Six of the ten judges came to this conclusion.

According to the Turkish news agency Anadolu, a lower court in Ankara on Wednesday ruled that the blockade should be lifted on the basis of this ruling by the highest Turkish court, after which that decision has been handed over to the Information and Communication Technologies Authority. The NetBlocks website reports that data shows that Wikipedia in Turkey has been restored for almost all users.

Wikipedia was blocked in Turkey for 991 days; In late April 2017, the country banned the internet encyclopedia. According to the Turkish government, there are articles that incorrectly link Turkey to terrorist groups, but Wikipedia refused to remove these articles. There are about 335,000 Turkish articles on Wikipedia.