MEDIA MONITORING DATABASE
The Constitutional Court: Access block on Yarkadaş’s Tweet Violates Freedom of Press and Freedom of Expression
RELATED PERSON OR INSTITUTION
Barış Yarkadaş
CITY
İstanbul
YEAR OF INTERFERENCE
2015
LAST UPDATED
01/10/2019
TYPE OF STATEMENT
Political
MEDIUM
Internet
Internet News Portal
THE TITLE OF WHOSE RIGHT IS INTERFERED
Journalist
RIGHTS GUARANTEED UNDER THE RIGHT OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
Right to Impart Information and Ideas
TYPE OF INTERFERENCE
Judicial Interference
Criminal Peace Judgeships
Decision to block access
THE LEGAL GROUNDS FOR INTERFERENCE
Law on Regulating Broadcasting (Publication) in the Internet and Fighting Against Crimes Committed by Means of Such Broadcasting
Art. 9

A news article originally published on the Radikal newspaper on July 27, 2014 was re-published on Gerçek Gündem news website by Barış Yarkadaş under the title ‘The Parallel Judge: I Have My Signature Under the Wire-Tapes’ and on website’s Twitter account with the comment, ‘An interesting comment from the judge of July 22 investigation’. Upon the request of the judge in question, the İstanbul 6th Criminal Peace Judge imposed an access ban on the social media post on June 15, 2015. Though Yarkadaş objected to the verdict of access ban, the İstanbul 1st Criminal Peace Judge rejected the objection. In response, Barış Yarkadaş submitted an application to the Constitutional Court.

The court’s verdict dated April 17 was published on the Official Gazette on May 15th. In the justified ruling, it has been stated that “the justifications put forward to rule for an access ban cannot be deemed relevant or sufficient.”