I am pleased to confirm that I successfully secured a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights requiring the reopening of criminal proceedings in respect of my client who had been wrongfully convicted by a Turkish court of membership in an armed terrorist organisation.

Judgment Demirhan and Others v. Türkiye – grouped follow-up case concerning convictions based on use of the ByLock messaging application for terrorism offenceshttps://t.co/23T35RtwbA#ECHR #CEDH #ECHRpress pic.twitter.com/pgxltgjWLx

— ECHR CEDH (@ECHR_CEDH) July 22, 2025

I lodged the application before the Strasbourg Court on 7 October 2022, challenging the domestic conviction, which was based principally on the alleged use of the encrypted messaging application ByLock. Turkish courts have consistently treated the use of ByLock—without reference to content or context—as sufficient in itself to establish criminal liability under Article 314 § 2 of the Turkish Criminal Code.

Subsequently, in September 2023, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered its landmark judgment in Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Türkiye [GC], setting out binding principles under Articles 6 and 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Grand Chamber held that Turkish courts had applied criminal law in a manner that lacked legal foreseeability and had denied applicants a fair trial, by equating mere use of ByLock with membership in a terrorist organisation, without a case-specific and reasoned assessment of individual criminal responsibility.

In line with that ruling, the Court joined 239 follow-up applications—including that of my client—and on 22 July 2025, the Second Section of the Court delivered its judgment in Demirhan and Others v. Türkiye. The Court found violations of both Article 7 (no punishment without law) and Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial), reaffirming that the systemic approach taken by the Turkish judiciary failed to meet Convention standards and had affected thousands of individuals in a similar position.

The judgment explicitly recognised that the appropriate form of redress would be the reopening of criminal proceedings at the domestic level, should the applicant request it.

I remain committed to supporting the client in seeking effective remedies in Türkiye pursuant to the Strasbourg Court’s judgment.

My publications on Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Türkiye :
ByLock Prosecutions and the Right to Fair Trial in Turkey: The ECtHR Grand Chamber’s Ruling in Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Türkiye, https://www.statewatch.org/media/4200/sw-echr-yalcinkaya-bylock-report.pdf
Strasburg Weighs In On Political Persecution In Turkey, https://verfassungsblog.de/strasburg-weighs-in-on-political-persecution-in-turkey/