Summoned Over a Post in Türkiye: what the davetiye actually means

CMK 145 contains a single sentence, and it fixes everything the document has to do: a person whose statement is to be taken or who is to be questioned is called by summons, the reason for the call is stated openly, and it is written that they will be brought by force if they do not come. A summons that does not say why you are being called is defective on its face, and it is worth photographing before you go anywhere.

At this stage you are a şüpheli, a suspect in an investigation. There is no indictment, no court, no hearing date. What there is, is a prosecutor who has to decide whether to open a case, and a statement that has not yet been taken from you.

Not going is the one option that makes the file worse. Under CMK 146 a decision to bring a suspect by force may be taken where sufficient grounds exist for a detention order or a warrant, and also where the person was called under CMK 145 and did not come; the person is then produced before the judge, court or prosecutor who called them immediately, and at the latest within twenty-four hours excluding travel time. CMK 98/1 goes further: in the investigation stage a criminal judge of peace may issue a yakalama emri, on the prosecutor's request, against a suspect who did not come when called or who could not be called at all.

For a foreign national the last row is the one that matters. A yakalama emri does not lapse because you flew home. It sits in the system, and a passport control desk is where it is read back to you.

Insult is a complaint offence. TCK 131/1 provides that the investigation and prosecution of insult depend on the victim's complaint, with one exception: insult committed against a public official on account of their duty. No complaint, no file — which is why the first question about a summons is who complained and when.

Two time limits sit behind that. TCK 73/1 gives the person entitled six months to complain, and 73/2 runs that period from the day they knew the act and knew who committed it. A sentence added to 73/2 on 7 November 2024 then puts a hard outer wall around insult specifically: for insult offences whose investigation and prosecution depend on a complaint, the complaint period may in no event exceed two years from the date the act was committed. A post from four years ago cannot be revived by someone discovering it last week.

The offence itself is narrow in the ways people expect it to be wide and wide in the ways they expect it to be narrow. TCK 125/1 carries three months to two years' imprisonment or a judicial fine, and insult in the victim's absence is punishable only where the act was committed by communicating with at least three people. TCK 125/2 brings a message addressed to the victim — audio, written or visual — within the same penalty, so a direct message is not outside the article. TCK 125/4 increases the sentence by one sixth where the act was public. TCK 126 removes the escape people reach for first: it is enough that there was no room for doubt about who was meant, even if no name was given.

Not every complaint becomes an investigation. CMK 158/1 allows a complaint to be made to the prosecutor's office or to the police, and CMK 158/6 requires a decision that no investigation be conducted where it is plain, without any inquiry, that the reported act is not an offence, or where the complaint is abstract and general. That paragraph adds a line worth quoting to anyone who has been told they are "in the system": in that case the person complained of cannot be given the status of suspect.

CMK 147 lists what has to happen when your statement is taken, and the list is short enough to hold in your head. Your identity is established, and you are obliged to answer questions about your identity truthfully (147/1-a). The offence attributed to you must be explained (147/1-b). You must be told that you may choose a defence lawyer, that the lawyer may be present while your statement is taken, and that if you are not in a position to choose one the bar will assign one (147/1-c). You must be told that not making a statement about the alleged offence is your legal right (147/1-e). And you must be reminded that you may ask for concrete evidence to be collected in order to dispel the suspicion, and be given the opportunity to put forward what is in your favour (147/1-f).

That last one is the paragraph foreigners use least and need most in a post case. Screenshots arrive in the file without context: no thread above them, no reply they answered, no indication that an account was shared, borrowed or run by someone else. A request that the platform record, the full conversation or the device data be obtained is a request the Code expressly invites you to make, and it is worth far more written into the record on the day than argued a year later.

The record is read by you and by your lawyer and then signed (147/1-i-4), and where a signature is refused the reasons must be written into it (147/1-i-5). If you cannot read Turkish, say exactly that and have it recorded. Language is not a courtesy here: CMK 202/3 applies the interpreter rules to the investigation stage and names the judge or the prosecutor as the appointing authority, which is not the same as an officer who speaks some English being asked to help. What the Code gives you and what it does not is set out in full under interpreter rights in Turkish criminal proceedings.

This is the part that has changed, and most English-language material about Turkish insult cases has not caught up with it. Insult was brought within önödeme — payment in advance — by an amendment of 7 November 2024, and that entry was itself amended on 24 December 2025. TCK 75/6-a-2 now lists insult under TCK 125, excluding only the case in 125/3-a of insult against a public official on account of their duty.

The mechanism is in TCK 75/1. The prosecutor's office calculates the sum from the lower limit of the penalty in the article, adds the investigation costs, and serves a notice. Pay within ten days and no public case is opened. If you ask within those same ten days, TCK 75/1 requires the prosecutor to order the amount to be paid in three equal monthly instalments; a request made in time settles it, and it is not a matter of discretion. Miss one instalment and the önödeme falls away and the investigation resumes. Two repeat rules apply: under 75/1 a person who commits another önödeme offence within five years is offered an amount increased by half, and under 75/6 the same offence committed again within five years cannot be settled this way at all. The figure that binds you is the one on the notice served on you, not one worked out from a website.

Two consequences follow that are easy to miss. First, önödeme is not mediation. CMK 253/3 states in terms that uzlaştırma is not available for insult under TCK 125, nor for stalking under TCK 123/A — a distinction that matters where a complaint mixes messages and a post, and one that is set out under stalking and threats in Türkiye. Second, because insult now falls within önödeme, the prosecutor's power under CMK 171/2 to defer opening a case for five years is not available for it: that paragraph excludes offences within the scope of mediation and önödeme.

Does paying leave a mark? TCK 75/7 provides that decisions not to prosecute, and decisions terminating a case, given on the basis of payment are recorded in a system of their own, and those records may be seen only where a prosecutor, judge or court requests them for a linked investigation or prosecution. There is no conviction, so there is nothing to enter the judicial record itself — which is a different register with its own rules, described under the judicial record and erasure. Whether to pay is still a decision to take with a lawyer who has read the file, not at a counter with a notice in your hand.

Read the reason stated on the davetiye, because not every post case is an insult case, and the differences are structural rather than cosmetic.

• TCK 299 — insulting the President. One to four years' imprisonment, increased by one sixth where the act was public. Prosecution depends on the permission of the Minister of Justice (299/3). There is no complaint clock and no önödeme route here.
• TCK 301 — denigration of the Turkish Nation, the State and its organs. Six months to two years. The article itself provides that expressions of opinion made for the purpose of criticism do not constitute an offence (301/3), and investigation depends on the permission of the Minister of Justice (301/4).
• A complaint by a public official about their duty. TCK 131/1 removes the complaint requirement, and TCK 75/6-a-2 removes the önödeme route, for insult falling under 125/3-a.

If a case is opened and ends in a sentence of two years or less, CMK 231/5 allows the court to defer announcement of the judgment, on the conditions in 231/6 — no previous conviction for an intentional offence, a view that the person will not offend again, and full compensation of the loss. The supervision period that follows is five years under 231/8 as amended in July 2026. That is the floor of the worst case for an ordinary insult file, not the ceiling everyone imagines when a summons arrives.

What none of this tells you is which article your own file is under, whether permission has been sought where it is required, and whether an önödeme notice has already been served and started running. Those are three questions with three answers, and they are in the file rather than on this page. The articles themselves, and the defences written into them — reaction to a wrongful act, mutual insult, criticism — are set out on the page for insult and social media offences in Türkiye.