Former European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judge Rıza Türmen has said Turkey’s decision to block access to the entire website of the T24 independent news outlet violates freedom of expression and predicted that the European court would rule against Turkey if the case reached it.
Türmen, who served as Turkey’s judge at the ECtHR from 1998 to 2008, told T24 journalist Cansu Çamlıbel in an interview published Wednesday that blocking the entire website over 118 disputed articles was a disproportionate measure that also prevented readers from accessing hundreds of unrelated news reports published daily.
He said the court had failed to distinguish between lawful and allegedly unlawful content, disregarding established Turkish and European court rulings requiring that restrictions on online expression be narrowly tailored.
The İstanbul 1st Criminal Court of Peace ordered access blocked to T24’s website and its account on the social media platform X on September 29, with the restrictions taking effect the following day.
The decision followed an investigation by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which alleged that 118 articles published by T24 constituted “LGBT propaganda” that threatened Turkey’s family structure and could negatively affect young people’s development concerning sexual orientation and gender identity.
The court cited Article 8/A of Turkey’s Internet Law No. 5651, which allows restrictions on online content on grounds that include preventing crime and protecting public order.
Türmen challenged the legal basis of the decision, saying that weakening the family structure was not among the grounds explicitly listed in the law for restricting internet content. He said the court had failed to demonstrate how the articles threatened public order.
He also questioned why authorities had blocked the entire website rather than restricting access to the individual articles identified in the investigation.
Türmen said the law generally requires restrictions to target specific content, allowing an entire website to be blocked only in exceptional circumstances, such as when individual content cannot technically be restricted or when restricting it would not prevent the alleged violation.
Neither exception applied to T24, he argued, because the outlet had already made all 118 articles inaccessible after receiving the court order.
The former judge said the blanket restriction also violated the public’s right to information because T24 publishes hundreds of news reports daily, most unrelated to the articles cited by prosecutors.
The accuracy of the court’s assessment of the articles has also been disputed. The decision stated that all 118 pieces had been published within the previous year, but T24 said in its appeal that only 21 had appeared during that period and that some dated back as far as 15 years.
Two of the articles cited in the decision were written by Türmen himself. One discussed whether remarks about LGBTQ+ people by the head of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate constituted hate speech, while the other examined a US Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage.
Türmen said neither article had been published in the preceding year, noting that one dated to 2020 and that the other was older.
He also criticized the court for reversing an earlier decision without adequately explaining why.
The same court had rejected prosecutors’ initial request to block T24 on September 25 but approved the restriction four days later after prosecutors appealed, according to the court decision.
Türmen said the lack of a sufficient explanation for that reversal raised questions about the legal justification for the ban.
He further argued that T24 had been denied an opportunity to challenge the allegations before the restriction was imposed, raising concerns about procedural fairness and the right to present a defense.
Referring to previous ECtHR judgments, including Ahmet Yıldırım v. Turkey and Cengiz and Others v. Turkey, Türmen said European case law had established that broad internet restrictions could violate freedom of expression by blocking lawful material along with the content authorities sought to restrict.
Turkey’s Constitutional Court has issued similar rulings. On September 24, just five days before the T24 blocking order, the court found that restrictions imposed on other websites under Article 8/A of the same internet law had violated freedom of expression.
Türmen said the failure of lower courts to follow Constitutional Court precedent reflected a broader problem concerning the rule of law in Turkey.
He also warned that blocking a major news outlet could create a chilling effect on journalists and other media organizations, discouraging them from reporting on controversial issues out of fear of similar restrictions.
Türmen expressed confidence that the ECtHR would find a violation if T24 eventually brought the case before it after exhausting domestic remedies.
He said T24 could seek an interim measure from Turkey’s Constitutional Court to have access restored while its legal challenge was pending, arguing that continued restrictions could cause harm that would be difficult to remedy.
T24 appealed the blocking order on October 1. With no ruling on its appeal, the outlet submitted an additional petition on October 5 asking the court to immediately examine the case.
