Atilla Taş v. Turkey, No. 72/17, ECtHR (Second Section), 19 January 2021

Pre-trial detention of a singer and columnist, because of tweets posted on his Twitter account and articles and columns written in a daily newspaper criticising the government policies and the President of the Republic.

Art. 5 ECHR
Art. 10 ECHR

When someone’s articles and tweets can in no sense be interpreted as a call to violence, and his remarks clearly do not amount to terrorist indoctrination, praise for the perpetrator of a terrorist attack, denigration of the victims of an attack, a call to fund terrorist organisations, or any other similar form of conduct, although they could be regarded as sharply critical of the policies of the government and the President of the Republic, the reasonableness of the accusations on which the order for his pre-trial detention had been based cannot be stretched to the point where his right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the Convention is impaired.
(In the present case, the European Court unanimously held that the pre-trial detention of a singer and columnist, on account of tweets and articles written by him, was unlawful and arbitrary under art. 5 §1 and art. 10 ECHR).