Turkey’s Constitutional Court (AYM) has struck down a law granting the Press Advertising Agency (BİK) authority to suspend the distribution of government advertisements to newspapers for up to two months, ruling that the measure violated the principle of legality and risked arbitrary interference with press freedom.
In a decision dated June 17, 2025, and made public on Monday, the court found that the provision allowing BİK to halt government ads and announcements failed to clearly define which actions warranted such penalties. The judges said this vagueness gave the agency excessively broad discretion that could disproportionately restrict freedom of expression and the press.
BİK, a state-run agency responsible for distributing public advertisements and official announcements, plays a crucial financial role in Turkey’s media landscape. These ads include government-mandated notices such as public tenders, court announcements and official postings that newspapers are legally required to publish. Since the agency decides which outlets receive these ads and in what amounts, it effectively controls a major source of revenue for the print media. Critics say this system has allowed authorities to reward pro-government newspapers and penalize those critical of the government by cutting their access to state-funded advertising.
The court also annulled a clause that made BİK’s decisions final and shielded them from judicial review, finding that it violated the right to seek oversight of court rulings. However, it upheld a provision requiring simplified judicial procedures in related cases. Other contested sections of the law were dismissed on procedural grounds.
The ruling comes after years of controversy over how BİK exercised its authority to distribute state-funded advertisements. Critics say the agency routinely punished newspapers critical of the government while favoring pro-government outlets.
In 2020 BİK issued a total of 808 days of ad suspensions nationwide, with 97 percent targeting just five opposition-leaning newspapers: Cumhuriyet, BirGün, Sözcü, Korkusuz and Evrensel. The same year, roughly 78 percent of total ad revenue went to pro-government publications, according to data compiled by media monitors.
In August 2022 BİK permanently revoked Evrensel’s right to publish official ads, claiming the newspaper had inflated its circulation through “bulk purchases,” where organizations or groups allegedly bought large numbers of copies. Evrensel denied wrongdoing, saying the rule was applied selectively to silence critical media. Despite a Constitutional Court precedent calling such sanctions unconstitutional, the İstanbul 2nd Administrative Court upheld BİK’s decision in 2024.
Local newspapers have also faced similar pressure. In mid-2025 BİK suspended the right of eight local newspapers in Mersin to publish public announcements, citing low distribution figures. Publishers said they were told to merge into fewer outlets to regain access, calling the move an attempt to silence smaller, independent media voices.
Earlier cases showed similar patterns. BirGün was penalized in 2021 after reporting on the media watchdog RTÜK’s overseas travel expenses, while Cumhuriyet received multiple suspensions in 2020 for coverage involving a senior government official.
Turkey was ranked the lowest-scoring country in Europe for online freedoms, according to a report from the Washington-based Freedom House last October. Turkey has a score of 31 in a 100-point index, with scores based on a scale of 0 (least free) to 100 (most free), and is listed as “not free.”
The country was ranked 159th out of 180 countries in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
