Catherina Valenzuela-Bock [1]
On October 6, 2015, the European Court of Human Rights (Court) decided [3] (judgement only available in French) in Belek and Velioğlu v. Turkey that a criminal conviction for a press article that did not call for violence or amount to hate speech violated Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights [4] (Convention). According to the press release [5], the case concerned the convictions of two Turkish nationals for publishing statements by members of an illegal armed group dealing with, inter alia, the democratic resolution of the Kurdish question and amnesty law in their newspaper. The Court evaluated both the wording of the article and the context of its publication while also considering the challenges in the fight against terrorism. It found that the article contained neither “call[s] for violence, armed resistance or insurrection” and did not constitute hate speech. The Court concluded that the fines and ban of the publication of the newspaper for three days were not a justifiable interference with the right to freedom of expression.