Turkey denounced on Tuesday as “absurd” the decision of a Swedish prosecutor not to open an investigation into a Kurdish protest in central Stockholm where an effigy of the Turkish president was hung from a lamppost.
Last week’s protest outside Stockholm City Hall sparked a furious reaction from Turkey, a NATO member that has delayed approving Sweden’s request to join the military alliance until the Swedish government cracks down on it. the groups that Ankara considers security threats. Turkey summoned the Swedish ambassador and canceled a visit by the speaker of the Swedish parliament in reaction to the incident.
In Sweden, a newspaper reported that a prosecutor decided not to open a criminal investigation into the hanging of an effigy of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Stockholm, saying no illegal act was committed. District attorney Lucas Eriksson told the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet about the decision.
But Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu disagreed, saying the protest amounted to racism and a hate crime.
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“The decision not to investigate taken by the (Swedish) prosecution is extremely absurd,” Cavusoglu said during a joint news conference with the visiting Iranian foreign minister. “This was a racist incident consisting of hate crimes. Therefore (the decision not to prosecute, to investigate) also goes against universal law and is a crime under international law.”
“If Sweden thinks that they are fooling us with these puns, I would like to say that they are fooling themselves,” he said.
Alarmed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland abandoned their longstanding policies of military nonalignment and applied to join NATO in May. The 30 member countries must agree to admit the two Nordic neighbors into the security organization.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during the opening ceremony of the Amasya Badal Tunnel via video conference at the presidential compound in Ankara, Turkiye, on January 19, 2023.
(Photo by Murat Kula/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The Turkish government has pressured Finland and Sweden to crack down on Kurdish exiles whom it accuses of having ties to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party and groups it views as terrorist organizations, and to extradite people suspected of crimes related to terrorism. Cavusoglu said last month that Sweden was not even “halfway through” addressing his country’s concerns.
Photographs posted on social media showed an Erdogan-like mannequin hanging upside down. A group calling itself the Swedish Solidarity Committee for Rojava claimed it was behind the protest. Rojava is a Kurdish name for Northern and Eastern Syria.
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Last week, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson called the protest an act of “sabotage” against Sweden’s bid to join NATO.
Ankara’s chief prosecutor’s office launched an investigation into the incident following a criminal complaint filed by Erdogan’s lawyers and sent a formal request for information and evidence to the Swedish authorities.
