PROCEDURE

The case originated in an application (no. 3111/10) against the Republic of Turkey lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a Turkish national, Mr Ahmet Yıldırım (“the applicant”), on 12 January 2010.

The applicant was represented by Ms A. Kaymak, a lawyer practising in İzmir. The Turkish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent.

The applicant alleged, in particular, that the blocking of access to his Internet site, ordered by the national authorities, amounted to an unjustified infringement of his rights under Articles 6, 7, 10 and 13 of the Convention and Article 2 of Protocol No. 1.

On 31 January 2011 notice of the application was given to the Government. It was also decided to rule on the admissibility and merits of the application at the same time (Article 29 § 1 of the Convention).

The applicant filed further observations (Rule 59 § 1 of the Rules of Court). Third-party comments were also received from the association Open Society Justice Initiative, which had been given leave by the President to intervene in the written procedure (Article 36 § 2 of the Convention and Rule 44 § 2).

THE FACTS

I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE

The applicant was born in 1983 and lives in Istanbul.

The applicant owns and runs a website (http://sites.google.com/a/ahmetyildirim.com.tr/academic/) on which he publishes his academic work and his views on various topics. The website was created using the Google Sites website creation and hosting service (http://sites.google.com/).

On 23 June 2009, under section 8(1)(b) of Law no. 5651 on regulating Internet publications and combating Internet offences, the Denizli Criminal Court of First Instance ordered the blocking of the website http://sites.google.com/site/kemalizminkarinagrisi/benimhikayem/atatuerk-koessi/at (hereinafter “the offending website”). The order was issued as a preventive measure in the context of criminal proceedings against the site’s owner, who was accused of insulting the memory of Atatürk.

On the same day, under section 8(3) of Law no. 5651, a copy of the blocking order was sent to the Telecommunications and Information Technology Directorate (“the TİB”) for execution.

On 24 June 2009, at the request of the TİB, the Denizli Criminal Court of First Instance varied its decision of 23 June and ordered the blocking of all access to Google Sites under section 8 of Law no. 5651. The TİB had indicated that this was the only means of blocking the offending website, as its owner did not have a server certificate and lived abroad.

The TİB, implementing the order of 24 June 2009, blocked all access to Google Sites and the applicant was thus unable to access his own website. All his subsequent attempts to remedy the situation were unsuccessful because of the blocking order issued by the court.

On 1 July 2009 the applicant applied to have the blocking order of 24 June 2009 set aside in respect of his website. He pointed out that he used the website regularly in order to publish his academic work and his opinions on various topics, and that the measure had barred all access to his site, which had no connection with the offending website. He argued, in particular, that in order to prevent other websites being affected by the measure, a method should have been chosen which would make only the offending website inaccessible. He cited as an example blocking the site’s URL. In support of his request, the applicant furnished the court with a copy of the webpage which appeared when he tried to access his own website. The following warning was displayed: “The Telecommunications and Information Technology Directorate has applied the order issued by the Denizli Criminal Court of First Instance on 24 June 2009 in respect of this website (sites.google.com) as a preventive measure.”

On 13 July 2009 the Denizli Criminal Court dismissed the applicant’s application. Referring to a recommendation issued by the TİB, it considered that the only means of blocking access to the offending website, in accordance with the blocking order, had been to block access to the Google Sites service, which had hosted the content complained of.

The applicant wrote to the Court on 25 April 2012 informing it that he was still unable to access his website even though, as far as he understood it, the criminal proceedings against the owner of the offending website had been discontinued on 25 March 2011 because of the impossibility of determining the identity and address of the accused, who lived abroad.