Turkish actor wins ECHR case over ‘kiss on the terrace’ video

The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Turkey for failing to protect the private life of a prominent Turkish actor who had been secretly filmed kissing another celebrity at her home in footage broadcast on television.

Birsen Berrak Tüzünataç, a film and soap opera star, won the marathon case at the ECHR, which ruled that Turkey had violated the European convention on human rights by dismissing her legal complaints.

In 2010, Tüzünataç had filed a domestic suit against the parent company of a Turkish television channel that had filmed her kissing another Turkish actor on a terrace at her home.

She said she had been filmed without her knowledge, in breach of her right to privacy, but in 2013 the Istanbul regional court dismissed her claim on the grounds that she had been filmed from the street and there had been no intrusion into her home.

Its ruling was upheld by Turkey’s court of cassation and its constitutional court.

The ECHR named the male actor involved only as a prominent figure with the initials SG. However Turkish media had widely reported that he was Şahan Gökbakar, one of the most famous screen faces in the country and star of blockbuster comedy films.

In its ruling the ECHR said that despite their fame, “a person’s love life is in principle of a strictly private nature”, while the video in question “seems to have had the sole purpose of satisfying the curiosity of a certain audience”.

It said that as the reporting failed to adhere to the “standards of responsible journalism”, the domestic courts in Turkey “should have shown greater rigour when weighing the various interests involved”.

It ruled Turkey had violated article 8 of the European convention on human rights, which enshrines respect for a person’s private life.

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Turkish TV personalities such as Tüzünataç, 38, while little known in the west, face immense scrutiny at home, where Turkish newspapers and websites are filled with pictures of celebrities.

The ECHR, part of the pan-European rights body the Council of Europe, has regularly ruled against Turkey in recent months over cases of detained opposition figures such as the civil society activist Osman Kavala and the Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtaş.