CEDH · CASELAW;JUDGMENTS;COMMITTEE;ENG — 3 avril 2025

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TÜRKİYE (Applications nos. 48635/20 and 8 others – see appended list)             JUDGMENT   STRASBOURG 3 April 2025   This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Gül and Others v. Türkiye, The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:   Gediminas Sagatys , President ,   Stéphane Pisani,   Juha Lavapuro , judges , and Viktoriya Maradudina, Acting Deputy Section Registrar, Having deliberated in private on 13 March 2025, Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date: PROCEDURE 1.     The case originated in applications against Türkiye lodged with the Court under Article   34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on the various dates indicated in the appended table. 2.     The Turkish Government (“the Government”) were given notice of the applications. THE FACTS 3.     The list of applicants and the relevant details of the applications are set out in the appended table. 4.     The applicants were convicted of disseminating propaganda in favour of a terrorist organisation. The trial courts decided to suspend the pronouncement of the judgment, pursuant to Article 231 § 5 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (see for the text of this provision Durukan and Birol v.   Türkiye , nos. 14879/20 and 13440/21, § 23, 3 October 2023), and to subject the applicants to a five-year supervision period. THE LAW JOINDER OF THE APPLICATIONS 5.     Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single judgment. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 10 of the Convention 6.     The applicants complained of the criminal proceedings initiated for the offence of propaganda in favour of a terrorist organisation. They relied, expressly or in substance, on Article 10 of the Convention. 7.     The Government submitted that Mr Çakıcı (application no. 48936/20 introduced on 19 October 2020) and Ms Güngörmüş (application no.   53008/20 introduced on 16 November 2020) had lodged their applications outside the six-month time-limit, calculated from the notification date of the Constitutional Court’s inadmissibility decisions to the applicants. The Court notes that the applicants in question were notified of the Constitutional Court’s decisions on 21 April and 17 May 2020, respectively. It therefore concludes that their applications with the Court were lodged within the six ‑ month time-limit. 8.     As regards the admissibility of all applications, the Government argued that the applicants’ statements or acts, expressed praise for PKK/KCK and/or glorified its activities and therefore legitimised or otherwise supported terrorist activities. They therefore considered that the individual applications at issue ran counter to the text and spirit of the Convention for the purposes of Article 17, thus depriving the applicants of the protection guaranteed under Article 10 of the Convention. For this reason, they argued that the applications were incompatible ratione materiae with the provisions of the Convention. The Government also claimed a lack of significant disadvantage, asserting that the suspension of the pronouncement of the judgment had not entailed any obligations or restrictions. They argued that once the supervision period had expired, the conviction, and any associated consequences, would be removed. 9.     The Court notes that similar objections have already been dismissed in a number of its judgments (see, among others, Durukan and Birol v. Türkiye , nos. 14879/20 and 13440/21, §§ 46-47, 3 October 2023; Gümüş v. Türkiye [Committee], no.   44984/19, § 10, 9 July 2024; and Korkut v. Türkiye [Committee], no.   3344/21, §§ 11-12, 24 September 2024, with further references) and sees no reason to depart from those findings in the present cases. The Court therefore considers that these complaints are not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention or inadmissible on any other grounds. They must therefore be declared admissible. 10.     The Court reiterates that, according to its well-established case-law, paragraph 2 of Article 10, is applicable not only to “information” or “ideas” which are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb (see generally Sürek and Özdemir v. Turkey [GC], nos. 23927/94 and 24277/94, § 57, 8 July 1999).   In the present applications, the Court notes that the applicants were convicted for either chanting slogans during a funeral or sharing content on social media in support of PKK and/or its sub-groups. In a number of judgments against Türkiye, the Court found a violation of Article 10 in similar circumstances as the domestic courts failed to contextualise and provide adequate and relevant reasoning as to whether the impugned acts or statements could be considered, given their content, the context in which they were made, and their capacity to cause harm considering their potential impact in the circumstances of the cases, as containing an incitement to the use of violence, armed resistance, or uprising, or as constituting hate speech (see, among others, Gül and Others v. Turkey , no. 4870/02, §§ 41-44, 8 June 2010; Yavuz and Yaylalı v. Turkey , no.   12606/11, §§ 42-55, 17 December 2013; Özer v. Turkey (no. 3), no.   69270/12, 11   February 2020; Üçdağ v.   Turkey, no. 23314/19, 31 August 2021). Furthermore, the Court held in the above-mentioned Durukan and Birol judgment that Article 231 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which provides for the suspension of pronouncement of judgments, did not offer the required protection against arbitrary infringement by the public authorities of the rights guaranteed by the Convention (§§ 66 and 67). 11.     Having examined all the material submitted to it in the present cases, the Court finds similar significant deficiencies in the domestic courts’ assessment. The Court is not satisfied that the national authorities based themselves on an acceptable assessment of the relevant facts and applied standards which were in conformity with the principles embodied in Article   10 of the Convention. 12.     These complaints are therefore admissible and disclose a breach of Article   10 of the Convention. APPLICATION OF ARTICLE   41 OF THE CONVENTION 13.     Regard being had to the documents in its possession and to its case ‑ law (see, in particular, Özer (no.3) , cited above, § 45), the Court considers it reasonable to award the sums indicated in the appended table. FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT, UNANIMOUSLY, Decides to join the applications; Declares the complaints concerning the criminal proceedings initiated for the offence of propaganda in favour of a terrorist organisation admissible; Holds that these complaints disclose a breach of Article 10 of the Convention; Holds (a)   that the respondent State is to pay the applicants, within three months, the amounts indicated in the appended table, to be converted into the currency of the respondent State at the rate applicable at the date of settlement; (b)   that from the expiry of the above-mentioned three months until settlement simple interest shall be payable on the above amounts at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points. Done in English, and notified in writing on 3 April 2025, pursuant to Rule   77   §§   2 and   3 of the Rules of Court.     Viktoriya Maradudina   Gediminas Sagatys   Acting Deputy Registrar   President       APPENDIX List of applications raising complaints under Article 10 of the Convention (criminal proceedings initiated for the offence of propaganda in favour of a terrorist organisation) No. Application no. Date of introduction Applicant’s name Year of birth Representative’s name and location Name of the first-instance court Date and reference number of decision Impugned statement or act of the applicant Sanction imposed Reasoning of domestic courts’ decisions Amount awarded for non-pecuniary damage per applicant (in euros) [1] Amount awarded for costs and expenses per application (in euros) [2]     48635/20 19/10/2020 Arjin Arzu GÜL 1988 Doğukan Kudat Tunceli Tunceli 2nd Assize Court 01/03/2019 2018/246 E. 2019/78 K. Chanting slogan “Martyrs are immortal” during the funeral of a member of PKK/KCK armed terrorist organisation 10 months of imprisonment with suspension of pronouncement of judgment The slogan “Martyrs are immortal” for a person who died during terrorist activity legitimised and glorified the terrorism and promoted membership to illegal organisation 2,000 250     48936/20 19/10/2020 Talip ÇAKICI 1983 Fatma Kalsen Tunceli Tunceli 2nd Assize Court 29/03/2019 2018/249 E. 2019/75 K. Chanting slogans “Martyrs are immortal” and “long live chairman Apo” during the funeral of a member of PKK/KCK armed terrorist organisation 10 months of imprisonment with suspension of pronouncement of judgment The slogan “Martyrs are immortal” for a person who died during a terrorist activity and “Long live chairman Apo” for the convicted leader of the terrorist organisation legitimised and glorified the terrorism and promoted membership to illegal organisation 2,000 250     53008/20 16/11/2020 Berivan GÜNGÖRMÜŞ 1989 Fatma Kalsen Tunceli Tunceli 2nd Assize Court 01/03/2019 2018/248 E. 2019/76 K. Chanting slogans “Martyrs never die” and “Long live chairman Apo” during the funeral of her brother, a member of PKK/KCK armed terrorist organisation, who died during an operation of security forces 10 months of imprisonment with suspension of pronouncement of judgment Qualifying the death of a terrorist as a martyr glorified and legitimised the violent actions of PKK and the “Long live chairman Apo” slogan, although not constituting a propaganda on its own, served for such purposes during the funeral which became an act of propaganda of a terrorist organisation 2,000 250     10713/21 08/02/2021 Yasin KOBULAN 1987 Özcan Kılıç Istanbul Istanbul 30th Assize Court 08/03/2019 2018/232 E. 2019/72 K. Sharing posts on social media in which he qualified the intervention of national security forces during the violent actions in southeast of Türkiye as a massacre: (1) sharing the flags symbolising the separatist terrorist organisation with the statement “16-year-old A.İ., who was slaughtered by the police officers in Şırnak, took his last journey in the company of tens of thousands of people”; (2) “Blockade has been ongoing in Nur Cudi, Sur, and Yafes neighbourhoods. The people are on the streets against the blockade”; (3) posting a photo of an alleged terrorist who died during a clash with security forces with the statement “Guerrilla who detonated explosives he was carrying in Dersim, and incidents taking place during the clash”; (4) “The police officers opened random fire on the houses in Ersin Street, Dörtyol Nur Neighbourhood, Cizre”; (5) “Flash! The people who do not obey the curfew declared by the Yüksekova Governorship took to the streets and started to resist”; (6) “10-year-old S.A. was slaughtered by snipers in Cizre”; (7) posting photos of the so-called leader of the terrorist organisation and of the so-called flag symbolising that organisation with the statement “With a funeral ceremony more than thirty thousand people attended; D.E. and D.A. who were slaughtered by police officers in Yüksekova yesterday and Z.M. (E.Ş.) who was a member of YPG and died during a clash in Şemdinli” 1 year, 6   months and 22 days of imprisonment with suspension of pronouncement of judgment The applicant’s deliberately misleading posts portraying the security forces as “mass ‑ murderers” legitimised and glorified the violent acts and methods of the PKK/KCK, an armed terrorist organisation 2,000 250     12156/21 09/02/2021 Bahri YILDIRIM 1978 Mehmet Sabih Özer Batman Batman 3rd Assize Court 03/04/2019 2018/367 E. 2019/128 K. Sharing content on social media: two videos with Kurdish songs referring to Kurdistan as home. The video contained the statement “I have only one wish and that is Kurdistan, mountains are my home”. The second video depicted the flag of the Regional Kurdish Government in Northern Iraq over a part of South ‑ East and Eastern Anatolia in Türkiye 1 year, 6   months and 22 days of imprisonment with suspension of pronouncement of judgment The content legitimised and glorified violent actions of the PKK/KCK, armed terrorist organisation given that they were shared at a time when armed conflicts took place between the said organisation and Turkish security forces in eastern and south-eastern Türkiye after the proclamation of self-governance in those towns 2,000 250     24589/21 28/04/2021 Mehmet Ali VARIŞ 1979 Özcan Kılıç Istanbul Istanbul 29th Assize Court 25/12/2019 2019/288 E. 2019/339 K. Sharing a video on social media entitled “a squirrel at the guerrilla table” published on the Youtube channel ‘Rojava Kurdistan’, in which guerrillas are kneeling down and a fawn is jumping on their back 1 year and 3 months of imprisonment with suspension of pronouncement of the judgment The content legitimised and glorified the terrorist organisation’s methods of coercion, violence and threats 2,000 250     25483/21 05/05/2021 Sedat YAĞCIOĞLU 1982 Evin Konuk Ankara Ankara 19th Assize Court 08/05/2018 2017/73 E. 2018/87 K. Sharing a post consisting of a photo of a road in Nusaybin, blocked by a truck with PKK/YPS and YDGH banner on it with the following comment: “A barricade in Nusaybin, no passage to occupants, massacre in Cizre, Sur, Silopi”. 1 year and 3   months of imprisonment with suspension of pronouncement of judgment The content legitimised and glorified the terrorist organisation’s methods of coercion, violence and threats 2,000 250     29260/21 24/05/2021 Atiye ŞAHİN 1968 Umut Bahar Mutlusu Yıldırım İzmir İzmir Regional Court of Appeal 18th Penal Chamber 14/10/2020 2019/353 E. 2020/1093 K. Being among the persons who chanted certain slogans and carried banners in a demonstration on 7 March 2015 organised by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) alongside carrying a flag of the YPJ (youth organisation of PKK/KCK in Syria) 10 months of imprisonment with suspension of pronouncement of judgment Holding the flag is admitted as legitimising and glorifying the violent actions of the terrorist organisation and promoting such actions 2,000 250     17780/22 23/03/2022 Mehmet CANLI 1961 İnan Akmeşe Istanbul Istanbul 13th Assize Court 29/06/2021   2021/116 E. 2021/181 K. Sharing the following posts on social media: (1) a photograph of a person who is allegedly a member of PKK which contained the statement “Nesrin Abdullah (General Commander of YPG) and John Kerry’s attempt for an independent Kurdish State in Syria.”, (2) another photograph with the statement “MLKP guerillas Veli Gorgun and Umit Yetik were buried in their villages in Ovacik”, (3) a post containing photographs of Mahir Cayan, Ibrahim Kaypakkaya and Mazlum Dogan with the statement “we have learnt so much from them - is it easy to die for the people whose faces you have not seen?” 1 year, 10   months and 15 days of imprisonment with suspension of pronouncement of judgment The applicant’s posts went beyond the freedom of expression and constituted propaganda in favour of PKK, YPG/YPJ and MLKP 2,000 250     [1] Plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicants. [2] Plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicants.