Criminalising Boycott Calls

Can a call for boycott ever amount to hate speech? A diligent human rights lawyer might reply, “it depends on the context”. Yet, in today’s polarised climate, the understanding of that context is increasingly shaped less by human rights law than by (geo)politics, particularly within the transatlantic “free speech divide” caricatured by Eric Heinze as a clash between “Wild West Cowboys” and “Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys”. For all their differences, neither side appears willing to confront a more insidious possibility: that hate speech laws may be weaponised against passive acts of protest, even in the absence of any protected ground for discrimination. This blind spot carries serious consequences, especially in autocratic settings where repression hides behind the legal façade of combating hate.

As illustrated in previous VerfBlog posts, Turkey’s ailing political system has come under renewed scrutiny following the detention of İstanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on 19 March 2025, and his subsequent arrest on corruption charges on 23 March 2025. The brutal suppression of the mass protests that ensued gave rise to numerous allegations of human rights violations, including cruel and degrading treatment amounting to sexual violence against female detainees. The chilling effect of these repressive measures prompted an alternative form of dissent: the ongoing boycott of goods and services provided by individuals and companies perceived as having ignored or disparaged the protests. Despite the relatively passive nature of this form of protest, the İstanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office characterised these boycott calls as “acts of hate speech”, initiating criminal investigations on 1 April 2025 for “incitement to hatred” and “discrimination”. This apparent overreach has inevitably echoed the measures taken against the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement in both Europe and North America, where calls for boycott have been equated with racial discrimination.

This post therefore explores the intersection between freedom of expression and calls for boycotting goods and services through the lens of international human rights law in order to establish the jurisprudential framework against which the Turkish legal response can be critically assessed. It argues that the otherwise understandable focus on political offences has contributed to the under-recognition of how hate speech laws are being weaponised in “democratorships” like Turkey. This marginalisation, in turn, facilitates a double standard in the application of human rights protections across Europe and North America, particularly concerning political speech.

Boycotting and Freedom of Expression

In exploring the often-overlooked relationship between boycotting and freedom of expression, it is worth recalling the origins of the term itself. The word “boycott” entered the English language after Irish Home Rule politician Charles Stewart Parnell urged the public to peacefully shun tenants who had taken over farms from which others had been evicted by Lord Erne’s land agent, Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott. This act of collective protest, widely regarded as the first successful boycott, prompted Westminster to enact the Protection of Persons and Property (Ireland) Bill, informally known as the Coercion Act 1881. True to its name, the Act led to the arrest of Parnell, then a sitting Member of the UK Parliament, for criticising British land reforms in Ireland in his newspaper.

Notwithstanding this longstanding tradition of boycotts as political expression, international human rights doctrine has been slow to engage with them substantively. In that respect, it is striking that the issue of boycotting was addressed only briefly in General Comment no. 34 of the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) on freedom of expression, given that it was drafted by an Irish scholar—Michael O’Flaherty, now Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights—who touched only on electoral boycotts. One might assume that this omission stemmed from a lack of relevant jurisprudence, especially as the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued its first landmark judgment on calls to boycott goods and services nearly a decade later in Baldassi and Others v France (2020).

The facts of Baldassi closely mirrored those surrounding the aforementioned BDS movement. Central to the case was the question of whether a call for the boycott of Israeli goods constituted an incitement to “unlawful economic discrimination on grounds of nationality”, as concluded by the Court of Appeal of Colmar and later confirmed by the Cassation. In evaluating the substantive right at stake, however, the ECtHR rejected the French courts’ reasoning. Referring to its previous landmark judgment in Perinçek v Switzerland, a case concerning genocide denial allegations by Swiss authorities against a Turkish politician, the Court emphasised that:

“it is in the nature of political speech to be controversial and often virulent. That does not diminish its public interest, provided of course that it does not cross the line and turn into a call for violence, hatred or intolerance. That is also true of a call for a boycott.” (para. 79)

As the reference to Perinçek and the so-called “Handyside formula” suggests, the threshold for legitimate interference with political expression, including calls for boycott, remains particularly high. This standard applies even in comparison to the limits on racial and religious discrimination outlined by Ahmed Shaheed in his 2019 report as UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. The only notable exception in human rights case law is Willem v France: a 2009 judgment concerning the criminal conviction of a communist mayor who had publicly declared his intention to boycott Israeli goods. Contrary to more recent judgments in this regard, the ECtHR ruled in favour of the respondent state in this case. It is noteworthy, however, that the Court’s reasoning focused on the “relatively moderate” (para. 41) nature of the penalty—a fine—and the mayor’s official duty to “maintain a certain neutrality” (para. 37). This rationale was criticised by dissenting judge Karel Jungwiert, who questioned whether the Court would have reached the same conclusion had the mayor’s boycott targeted US, Russian, or Chinese goods in response to the invasion of Iraq or the unrests in Chechnya and Tibet.

In view of the above, it is evident that boycott calls initiated by citizen activists—especially when directed at individuals or entities outside protected categories such as race, religion, or belief as defined by Shaheed—are covered by the scope of protection under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) or Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). It is through this normative framework that recent Turkish practices should be evaluated.

Calls for Boycott in Turkey: Facts and Charges

Another key parallel between the BDS movement and the boycott movement in Turkey is that they both originated from political actors. In Turkey’s case, the boycott was openly endorsed by the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, which even launched a website listing the targeted companies. This call quickly gained traction among public figures, and soon evolved into a cause célèbre.

In an effort to counter this growing trend, Turkish prosecutors primarily relied on two ex officio offences in the Turkish Criminal Code (TCK): Article 122, which provides for a prison sentence of one year to three years for “hatred and discrimination on grounds of race, nationality, colour, sex, disability, political ideology, philosophical belief, or religious sectarianism”. Article 216, meanwhile, prescribes a penalty of six months to three years for “inciting the people to hatred or disparaging the people”, depending on the perceived threat to public order and the nature of the incitement or disparagement.

What is particularly troubling about this wave of investigations is that some detainees were questioned for stating that boycotting and protesting were protected under the Turkish Constitution, such as actor Cem Yiğit Üzümoğlu, internationally known for his portrayal of Mehmet the Conqueror in a popular docuseries. Others, like content creator and MD, Dr. Enes Özel were investigated solely for endorsing the boycott on social media. Few would argue that these acts constitute hate speech, raising serious concerns about whether such far-reaching interferences could ever be considered “prescribed by law”, let alone “necessary in a democratic society”.

Although the detained celebrities were later released under precautionary measures, including international travel bans, the investigations appear politically motivated. Similar to civil SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation), criminal probes targeting public figures can be seen as an effective deterrent to millions of potential boycotters—regardless of whether they result in charges or, for that matter, convictions. In this context, the (ab)use of Articles 122 and 216 TCK by Turkish prosecutors is particularly concerning, as it suggests the potential political instrumentalisation of hate speech legislation. The invocation of these articles against political dissenters demonstrates how legal frameworks ostensibly adopted to abide by international human rights obligations can be manipulated to suppress democratic opposition, blurring the line between legitimate enforcement and repression. This has earned relatively little attention, overshadowed by the more conspicuous abuses of Articles 299 (defaming the President) and 301 (denigrating the Nation or the State and its institutions). Unsurprisingly, relatively recent assessments by the Venice Commission and the HRChave predominantly focused on these political offences, with limited engagement on the weaponisation of hate speech provisions.

This marginalisation of the misuse of hate speech laws in Turkey by mostly “Western” experts does not, however, negate the existence of such abuse. Rather, it limits both researchers and practitioners from drawing valuable lessons from Turkey, and from confronting the broader risks of suppressing legitimate political expression under the guise of “combating hate speech.”

Concluding Remarks: “A Question of Locality”

In his 1888 pamphlet, Scottish writer Samuel Laing lamented that the laws of the United Kingdom at the time allowed him to call for a boycott in Britain, whereas the same act had led to the imprisonment of Irish activists. A similar contradiction persists today: while Turkish and Palestinian activists face the threat of criminal sanctions for using their purchasing power to protest injustices, recent boycotts of US products have been tacitly—if not openly—condoned by local governments in countries such as Canada and Denmark.

Yet Turkey, like Canada and the US, is a party to the ICCPR, and is also bound by the same regional human rights framework as Denmark and France. The response to Laing’s rhetorical question – “Am I a criminal?” – should therefore not hinge on “a question of locality”, but on the consistent application of human rights norms to political expression, wherever it occurs. For when the legality of dissent depends on geography, the universality of human rights becomes a mere fiction.