Turkey's freedom of expression problems continue to worsen with each passing day. Instead of identifying these problems and advocating for solutions, the Constitutional Court has been making decisions to overlook the issue. In this context, the Constitutional Court has been delaying applications alleging violations of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly for an extended period. In 2022, the Constitutional Court issued a pilot decision by consolidating 19 applications, which had been pending for a long time. These applications were filed by individuals who were tried and sentenced for various crimes, but their verdict announcements (HAGB) were deferred, subjecting them to a five-year supervision period.In the Atilla Yazar and others application, rather than examining the complaints on their merits, the General Assembly of the Court opted to issue a violation decision based on procedural grounds. The Court's reasoning was that the appeal against the HAGB decision was solely reviewed in terms of the HAGB decision by the heavy penal courts, which act as the appeal authority, and the merits of the first-instance court decision were not assessed. The Court also nullified a provision of the Criminal Procedure Code related to another decision. Subsequently, Article 231, Paragraph 12 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was amended by Law No. 7445, dated 28/3/2023. The amendment stipulates that the appeal authority must review both the HAGB decision and the judgment. However, this amendment does not provide a solution for the applications previously submitted to the Constitutional Court.This time, in 2023, the Constitutional Court decided to consolidate 610 applications filed between 2014 and 2021. The Court ruled on procedural violations without examining the merits of any of these applications and ordered the courts to conduct a retrial for all cases in question.It should be noted that these decisions of the Court did not rectify the violations of the applicants' rights. Instead of contributing to the resolution of the issues concerning freedom of expression, these decisions obscured the problems. Firstly, it is questionable whether the judgments can deliver individual justice for the applicants. For many of the applicants, the five-year supervision period has already lapsed, and the conviction has been expunged along with all its consequences. After this stage, a retrial for the same offense would not provide any legal benefits for the applicants. On the contrary, it will subject them to the status of accused once again. Furthermore, there is no clarity regarding which authority will conduct the retrial and the specific issues to be addressed during the retrial. The violation decision was issued based on the objection authority's conduct. In such a scenario, it would be logical for the authority responsible for the violation to remedy it. However, the Constitutional Court sent its decision to the courts of first instance. The first instance courts, however, lack the means to address the procedural problem identified by the Constitutional Court. If, as a result of the retrial, the courts reaffirm the previous decision, it will lead to the absurd outcome of subjecting the applicants to a new review, and they may be compelled to submit an individual application to the Constitutional Court once again. This demonstrates that the Constitutional Court's decision does not provide individual justice for the applicants.Another problem with this decision is the granting of a single attorney's fee for lawyers handling multiple applications within the 610 consolidated cases. For instance, if a lawyer submitted an application in 2014 for a client charged with insulting the president, in 2018 for another client facing charges of inciting hatred among the public, and in 2021 for another client accused of promoting a terrorist organization, the Constitutional Court will only award a single attorney's fee for merging these applications. It is difficult to argue that this decision is fair and equitable.Furthermore, the most significant issue lies in the fact that there was no examination of the substance of the applicants complaints, specifically concerning freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. This omission weakened the Constitutional Court's status as an effective remedy for such violations.The overall impact of these decisions is to obscure the serious issues surrounding freedom of expression in the country. Every year, hundreds of thousands of investigations and lawsuits are initiated, resulting in the punishment of tens of thousands of individuals for their actions falling within the ambit of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. These actions include various crimes such as insulting the President, public officials, denigrating state institutions, praising crime and criminals, inciting hatred among the public, engaging in terrorist propaganda, and opposing the Law on Meetings and Demonstrations.Instead of addressing these problems and establishing clear criteria to determine which words and behaviors are protected under freedom of expression, the Constitutional Court veils the issues with decisions that do not even include the events that are the subject of the application, omit the names of the applicants from the text of the decision, and fail to publish the annexes containing the applicants information.

The Freedom Observer

It should be noted that these decisions of the Court did not rectify the violations of the applicants' rights. Instead of contributing to the resolution of the issues concerning freedom of expression, these decisions obscured the problems.

Freedom of Expression Decision of the Constitutional Court

While Turkey was trying to heal the wounds of the February 6 earthquake, it also witnessed new political developments that affected the balance between the government and the opposition on the eve of the -sidential and parliamentary elections. Meanwhile, the government continues to respond to criticisms leveled at its negligence and failure to cope with the devastation and suffering caused by the earthquake. As detailed below, the government imposed new bans aimed at destroying the last remnants of the already severely restricted freedom of expression.The aforementioned development, which could affect the political balances on the eve of the elections, came from the İYİ Party leader Meral Akşener, right after the opposition alliance (Table for Six) announced that they had determined the presidential candidate -which is considered to be CHP Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Akşener is trying to get one of the Istanbul or Ankara Metropolitan Mayors to become the opposition presidential candidate in the hope that she will facilitate her goal of becoming the prime minister in the promised parliamentary system.Since Akşener has no chance to realize this goal after her exit from the Table for Six, she will have to look for a new strategy that will bring her and her party to an advantage in the coming weeks. Although it is not clear for now how this move of the İYİ Party will affect the general political landscape and the balance between the ruling bloc and the opposition, it can be predicted that Turkish politics is open for new developments in the coming days.Meanwhile, the bans on some religious publications, which are among the government's pressures on freedom of expression mentioned at the beginning, have also led to new doubts about the nature of the regime in Turkey. As a matter of fact, upon the request of the Presidency of Religious Affairs (DİB), the prevention and seizure of the translation of the Qur'an written by a theologian on the grounds that it violates the basic principles of the religion of Islam is a heavy pressure on freedom of expression, as well as a constitutional violation of the Republic of Turkey. This move by the government also contradicts the principle of secularism. Moreover, it would not be surprising to encounter such prohibitions in the future as long as this legislation remains in force.We learned from this last incident that the AKP government, by making an addition to the founding Law of the DIB with a decree in 2018, granted this institution a monopolistic authority to determine the meaning and interpretation of the Qur'an. This situation, in one aspect, means that Islam has become almost the established religion, and in another aspect, the Presidency of Religious Affairs has been given a church-like status.While all of this is going on, the avalanche of problems caused by the AKP government that have deepened and led to a crisis of political legitimacy remains on the agenda.&nbsp;These include the economic crisis that is racing to the bottom, severe degradation of the law, justice, and fundamental freedoms, and the state’s - and the government - &nbsp;maintaining its security-oriented approach to the Kurdish problem. All these problems together with the DİB’s monopoly over the interpretation of Islam that is in clear violation of secularism and human rights, and those related to the reconstruction and urban transformation caused by the earthquake, await the new government and parliament that will be formed after the elections.Stay tuned, and see you in the next issue.

• <a fr-original-style="" href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-sweden-government-hulusi-akar-turkey-726084513c24e2319747181c25a8131d" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(9, 9, 9); text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent; outline: none; cursor: pointer; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: auto; box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank">Turkey</a> canceled next week’s visit by Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson after Rasmus Paladan, a far-right activist from Denmark, staged a protest outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm where he burned the Quran, Islam’s holy book. "Permitting this anti-Islam act, which targets Muslims and insults our sacred values, under the guise of freedom of expression is completely unacceptable," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.

freedom of expression ile ilgili hikayeler