Non-prosecution for sharing drawing of Erdoğan, 1980 coup general

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Prosecutors have decided not to prosecute lawyer Efkan Bolaç for a social media post that included a drawing of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and late General Kenan Evren, who led the 1980 military coup.

"In the concrete case, the legal elements of the mentioned crime did not occur," stated the Investigation Bureau for Press Crimes of the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office.

Bolaç had shared the Twitter post subject to the criminal complaint for "inciting the public into animosity and hatred" on September 12, 2015, the anniversary of the 1980 coup.

The image he posted depicts Erdoğan and Evren in military uniform and with the message "Not much has changed since September 12, 1980 to today."

In his tweet, Bolaç had also written, "The September 12ers did not die, they live in the heart of the government, September 12ers are in graves but their ideas are in power."

An email tip-off

The investigation was opened after an email tip-off to the Ankara Provincial Security Directorate. Another tweet dated July 16, 2014, by Bolaç, where he said, "Water outages had made Sözen [Nurettin, former İstabul mayor] lose the mayorship. Hang on friends, we'll finish them, turn on the taps :)"

In his statement at the prosecutor's office, Bolaç said he wrote those tweets but there were previous decisions of non-prosecution for some of them.

Fundamental rights

For the offense of "inciting the public into animosity and hatred" to occur, it is not enough to incite a section of the public that has different characteristics in terms of social class, race, religion, sect or region against another, but also this should present a "clear and imminent danger to public safety," said the prosecutor's office.

"In this way, the trend towards reducing crimes of an abstract danger in contemporary law has been taken into account, and the scope of use of fundamental rights and freedoms has been expanded," it stated.

"By virtue of this regulation, only incitements that 'contain violence or advise violence' can be considered within the scope of the article."

Public security

The decision also notes that the danger of the disruption of public security should be based on concrete facts.

It should be found that a person's statements or actions pose an imminent threat to public security in order to charge them, said the prosecutors.

"There should be a clear and present criterion of danger to freedom of expression and this type of crime of danger." (AS/VK)