Did the speeches complained of constitute an offence?

Unfounded

Claim

Alparslan Kuytul's speeches published on the foundation's channel incite the people to rebellion, contain insults to the President and set out a pro-coup stance; for this reason the foundation should be closed. Made by: citizens who applied through BİMER in the summer of 2016 (two petitions dated 21 July 2016 and one dated 11 August 2016)

Fact

This claim belongs to the summer of 2016, that is, to a year and a half before the operation of 30 January 2018. In applications made through BİMER in July and August 2016, Alparslan Kuytul's speeches published on the foundation's channel were complained of; the applicants asserted that the speeches incited the people to rebellion and contained insults to the President, and asked that the foundation be closed.

The applications went to the Directorate General of Foundations. The inspectors did not make do with the excerpts circulating online; they examined the originals of the recordings. This is what they wrote in their report:

In the video recording on the foundation's channel nothing constituting an offence was found.
The speech complained of is a speech of a cautionary nature, saying that the President should take precautions in advance in certain matters; it is not of a malicious or insulting nature.
In the footage on which the complaints rest, only one part of the speech was brought to the fore, or only that part was published; the cut versions are circulating online.

The plainest piece of evidence came from one of the complainants. The citizen who applied on 21 July 2016 watched the unclipped recording and then withdrew his complaint on 29 July 2016, writing out his reason himself: he had realised that some parts of the video had been cut out and that it did not reflect what was meant to be said.

The report notes one further point: the final assessment of whether the recording constitutes an offence lies with the prosecution service. The inspectorate did not clear anyone beyond its own authority; it looked at as much as it could look at within its own field and found no offence. This measured language does not weaken the conclusion of the report — on the contrary, it shows that the conclusion was not made to order.

What were the complaints?

Immediately after the coup attempt of 15 July 2016, applications resembling one another were made through BİMER about the Furkan Foundation and Alparslan Kuytul. The inspection report of the Directorate General of Foundations sets out three of them along with their registration numbers:

21 July 2016 — The applicant İ.A. wrote that he thought the foundation was connected with the coup and that in the videos published by its teacher the people were being incited to rebellion, and asked for the matter to be investigated.
21 July 2016 — The applicant N.A. complained of the words "Erdoğan's pen has been broken", which he said occurred in a speech shared on 1 July 2016, and asked whether Kuytul had known about the coup in advance.
11 August 2016 — The applicant M.Y.E. described the foundation as pro-coup and asked for it to be closed immediately.

What did the inspectors do?

The chief inspectorate first confirmed the applications: by a letter dated 16 August 2016 one of the applicants was contacted, and on 23 August 2016 that person replied through the postal service confirming that the application was his own.

Then the real work was done. Not the excerpts circulating on social media but digital copies of the recordings held on the foundation's own site and channel were attached to the report, and the originals were assessed.

Scan of the section of the Directorate General of Foundations inspection report stating that nothing constituting an offence was found in the video recording on the foundation's channel — The section of the inspection report covering the application of 11 August 2016 and the assessment of the video recording. The marked line reads: *although nothing constituting an offence was found in the video recording...*

What did the report say?

For the speech made after the coup attempt, the report quotes the passage in which Kuytul says he was not pleased by the coup:

"However much we have criticised this government from the beginning, we would take no pleasure in their being brought down by a coup; there is no telling where this coup will go."

The inspectorate's view of this recording is plain: nothing constituting an offence was found in the video recording. That is, the application accusing the foundation of being "pro-coup" was refuted by the very recording it complained of.

The second recording is the speech in which the words "Erdoğan's pen has been broken" occur. Here the report says two things. First, that videos in which only that part of the speech was brought to the fore, or in which only that part was published, were circulating online, and that a great many people had seen it in this form and been troubled. Second, the conclusion that emerges when the original recording is assessed:

Scan of the section of the inspection report stating that the speech was of a cautionary nature and contained neither malice nor insult — The same section of the report: the speech is of a cautionary nature, to the effect that the President should take precautions in advance in certain matters; it is not of a malicious or insulting nature.

The citizen who withdrew his complaint

The most illuminating document in this file is not an official report but a citizen's own petition. N.A., who complained on 21 July 2016, wrote to BİMER again eight days later. After repeating his first application word for word, he added this: he had realised on 29 July 2016 that the video was entirely a construction, that by cutting out some of its parts it did not reflect what was meant to be said, and he had withdrawn his complaint.

Scan placing side by side the text of the BİMER complaint of 21 July 2016 and the second application in which the same citizen withdrew his complaint — On the left the first application of 21 July 2016, on the right the same citizen's petition of withdrawal. The reason for the withdrawal is written in the text itself: he realised on 29 July 2016 that the recording had been clipped.

How the recordings were clipped is the subject of a separate heading. The only thing that matters here is this: what produced the complaint was not the speech itself but its cut version. The person who saw the original gave up his complaint.

Why does this document matter?

Because in 2018 the same speeches came up again, and this time they were made the grounds for a charge of propaganda for a terrorist organisation. Yet the same recordings had been examined in 2016 by the state's own inspection body, no offence had been found, and that assessment had gone into a report. The report was later added to the indictment too — that is, the authority that prepared the file had it in hand.

The report's own reservation should be written down as well: the inspectorate separately notes that the final assessment of whether the recording constitutes an offence, whether it is original and whether it was published in full lies with the prosecution service. This sentence does not weaken the report; on the contrary, it shows it to be a text that knows its own limits. A text that knows its limits saying "there is no offence" within its own field weighs more heavily than the same words from a text eager to reach a conclusion.

This page belongs to the applications of the summer of 2016 and to the inspection report of the Directorate General of Foundations; it is separate from the file opened by the operation of 30 January 2018. Nor should it be confused with another, ongoing judicial process. Related page: the claim that Alparslan Kuytul was responsible for the foundation's affairs.

The claim that the speeches complained of constituted an offence