Turkey’s Constitutional Court has ruled that a blanket ban on demonstrations in Kırklareli province during a 2020 protest campaign by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) violated the right to peaceful assembly, the Mezopotamya news agency reported Wednesday.
In its July 21 ruling, the court found that the authorities had not assessed whether there was a clear and imminent danger of criminal activity justifying the restrictions and that public health laws did not authorize a blanket ban on demonstrations. It awarded compensation but declined to order a retrial, saying the march was organized in response to events in 2020 and that the party had not claimed holding it years later would still serve a particular purpose.
The case stemmed from restrictions the Kırklareli Governor’s Office imposed on June 12, 2020, citing the COVID-19 pandemic. The measures banned public gatherings across the province from June 14 to 20 and restricted travel by people seeking to join demonstrations.
The HDP challenged the restrictions, but the Edirne Administrative Court upheld them on public health grounds. The İstanbul Regional Administrative Court rejected the party’s appeal in May 2022, after which the HDP filed an application with the Constitutional Court that July.
The Constitutional Court distinguished between Article 17 of Turkey’s Law on Meetings and Demonstrations, which governs restrictions on specific gatherings, and Article 19, which allows broader bans under stricter conditions. It found that neither the governor’s office nor the lower courts had specifically assessed whether the legal requirements for such a ban were met.
The Kırklareli ruling followed two other Constitutional Court decisions on restrictions imposed during the same protest campaign. On January 29, the court found that authorities in southern Osmaniye province had failed to adequately justify banning demonstrations. On April 21 it ruled that a blanket ban imposed in İstanbul on public health grounds lacked a sufficient legal basis, a finding it cited in the Kırklareli case.
The HDP, the political predecessor of today’s Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), organized the campaign after parliament stripped three opposition lawmakers, including the HDP’s Leyla Güven and Musa Farisoğulları, of their seats in June 2020. The campaign main event was a six-day protest march, with two groups setting out from Edirne in the northwest and Hakkari in the southwest, and meeting in Ankara on June 20. During the campaign, authorities in several cities, including Kırklareli imposed bans on demonstrations and restrictions on travel related to the protests.
The Constitutional Court awarded 50,000 Turkish lira (about $1,000) in nonpecuniary damages and 40,664.10 lira (about $810) in legal costs.
