By Emre Peker
ISTANBUL--Turkey's top court on Thursday ruled that a ban on
YouTube is unconstitutional, paving the way to lift the two-month
blockade, after the government cut off access to Google Inc.'s
video-sharing website for publishing leaked state secrets just days
before critical March elections.
The Constitutional Court in Ankara sided 14-to-2 with individual
appeals filed by Google's local attorney, opposition lawmakers and
the Union of Turkish Bar Associations, ruling that YouTube's
blockade breached freedom of expression, according to a brief
decision published on its website.
Judges next will write up their detailed ruling and send it to
Turkey's TIB telecommunications watchdog and the Transport,
Maritime Affairs and Communications Ministry for implementation,
thus lifting the ban.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government so far has
refused to implement lower court decisions against the website's
blockade. Access to YouTube was still barred late on Thursday.
The Communications Ministry declined to comment, while TIB
couldn't be reached after regular business hours.
The YouTube decision is poised to thrust the Constitutional
Court back into the center of Turkey's increasingly polarized
politics, right before August presidential elections. Mr. Erdogan,
who is expected to run for and win the presidency, slammed the
judges for removing a similar ban on Twitter Inc. in early April,
saying his government will abide by the decision but doesn't
respect it.
"The government will see this as a political ruling and attack
the Constitutional Court and its chairman," said Soli Ozel, an
international-relations lecturer at Kadir Has University in
Istanbul. "If the prime minister becomes the next president, he
will also get to appoint judges to the Constitutional Court, at
which point he can establish court that he desires."
In recent months, the top court has emerged as the last front of
a widening political war that has shaken Turkey since nationwide
antigovernment protests last June against what demonstrators say is
Mr. Erdogan's increasingly autocratic rule.
The premier's AKP Justice and Development Party has dismissed
not only the protests, but also a selloff that dragged the lira to
record lows and a corruption probe that forced a cabinet shuffle in
December, as the work of a what its politicians term a "parallel
state" seeking to topple Turkey's government.
Mr. Erdogan says the mastermind of that movement against him is
his one-time ally Fethullah Gulen, an influential Turkish imam
based in the U.S., with millions of followers at home. Mr. Gulen
denies the allegations, but the premier has vowed to go after his
congregation, believed to have a heavy presence in the bureaucracy,
especially in the police and the judiciary.
"We will make the parallel state account for this, and prevent
future coup attempts in Turkey," Mr. Erdogan told AKP lawmakers in
the Ankara parliament on Tuesday. The premier has repeatedly
alleged that Gulenists have infiltrated the judiciary and even have
illegally wiretapped the Constitutional Court.
On Wednesday, Mr. Erdogan claimed that the imam's followers were
preparing a film that would be leaked before Turkey's first direct
presidential elections in August to harm the premier. An attorney
for Mr. Gulen denied the allegation.
The government has responded to challenges over the past year by
removing thousands of prosecutors, judges and police officers from
their posts, while enacting laws boosting government oversight of
the National Intelligence Organization, the judiciary and the
Internet.
One of the laws, adopted in February, gave the government power
to shutter websites without court order. The legislation was pushed
through parliament by AKP deputies after bribery allegations in
December rocked the cabinet.
Shortly afterward, the prosecutors' probe became public,
recorded telephone conversations--including some of Mr. Erdogan's
that he confirmed--were leaked online, widely shared on Twitter and
aired on YouTube. The daily revelations came as Mr. Erdogan sought
to clinch a victory in March-30 local elections that had turned
into a referendum on his decadelong rule.
The government banned microblogging site Twitter on March 20,
citing privacy violations and blaming the American company for
refusing to abide by local court orders. Twitter says it applies
rulings in line with its policies.
YouTube was blocked one week later, just hours after a two-part
voice recording surfaced on the website purportedly disclosing a
top-secret discussion about a strike inside Turkey's war-torn
southern neighbor Syria. The alleged recordings involved
high-ranking officials, including Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu
and the spy chief, Hakan Fidan. The leaks were decried by Mr.
Erdogan as the work of traitors from the parallel state.
Turkey's increasingly harsh online measures have raised concern
among its Western allies, with the U.S. and the European Union
criticizing recent bans.
But while his detractors charge Mr. Erdogan is becoming one of
the world's most determined Internet censors, the premier maintains
Web platforms aren't respecting Turkey's sovereignty. The country's
interests trump foreign companies' rules, Mr. Erdogan has
repeatedly said, slamming social-media websites as menaces that
undermine national values.
Yeliz Candemir contributed to this article.
Write to Emre Peker at emre.peker@wsj.com
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