Yahoo – AFP,
1 december 2015
 |
| A Turkish court had barred access to video-sharing site YouTube over 10 videos deemed insulting to modern Turkey's founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (AFP Photo/Samantha Sin) |
Strasbourg
(France) (AFP) - The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday that
Turkey had violated conventions on freedom of expression when it banned YouTube
for more than two years.
An Ankara
court had barred access to the video-sharing site from May 2008 to October 2010
over 10 videos deemed insulting to modern Turkey's founding father Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk, the Strasbourg-based rights tribunal said.
"Blocking
without a legal basis users' access to YouTube infringed the right to receive
and impart information," it said, ruling on a case brought by three
Turkish law professors.
"The
court also found that there was no provision in the law allowing the domestic
courts to impose a blanket blocking order on access to the Internet, and in the
present case to YouTube, on account of one of its contents."
The lengthy
ban on YouTube -- and thousands of other websites -- had prompted widespread
concern about freedom of expression under then prime minister and now President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who critics say has become increasingly authoritarian.
Before the
ban, YouTube had been the fifth most popular site in Turkey.
Erdogan and
the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been repeatedly criticised
for using court orders to block critical websites, topping a Google table for
content removal requests.
Last year
the search engine also accused Turkey of intercepting its Internet domain,
redirecting users to other sites.
The
government blocked Twitter and YouTube in March 2014 after they were used to
spread a torrent of audio recordings implicating Erdogan -- then premier -- and
his inner circle in an alleged corruption scandal.
Turkey's
parliament in March also approved legislation to tighten the government's
control over the Internet by allowing it to block websites without prior
judicial authorisation, sparking outrage both at home and abroad and a
condemnation from the country's Constitutional Court.
Erdogan has
also made no secret of his disdain for social networks, comparing them to a
"murderer's knife" and once famously vowing to "eradicate"
Twitter.
The
European court said in its ruling Tuesday that "YouTube was a single
platform which enabled information of specific interest, particularly on
political and social matters, to be broadcast.
"It
was therefore an important source of communication and the blocking order
precluded access to specific information which it was not possible to access by
other means."
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