Which WhatsApp message is a criminal threat in Türkiye, and which charge runs without the complainant.

Turkish law has no offence of sending an aggressive message. It has TCK 106, and that article is satisfied by the content of what was threatened, not by how angry the exchange was. Its first sentence covers threatening a person with an attack on their life, or on their bodily or sexual integrity, or that of a relative. It carries six months to two years, and where the offence is committed against a woman the 2022 amendment provides that the lower limit cannot be less than nine months.

The same paragraph then deals separately, and far more lightly, with a different kind of message. A threat to cause large damage to property, or to do some other harm, is punished on the complaint of the victim with two to six months' imprisonment or a judicial fine. You will lose your job, everyone will hear about this — those belong here.

A third group is not TCK 106 at all. Abuse directed at the person is insult under TCK 125; demanding money by threatening to publish something damaging is blackmail under TCK 107; sending nothing threatening but continuing to send is persistent following under TCK 123/A. One thread routinely produces two charges.

This is the half of the question that matters once the first shock passes, and the half most often got wrong. The rule is TCK 73. Where investigation and prosecution depend on a complaint, the complaint must be made within six months of the day the person entitled to complain knew both the act and who was behind it. Withdrawal drops the case, and under TCK 73/5 a withdrawal in respect of one co-defendant extends to the others. Withdrawal after the judgment has become final does not stop the sentence being carried out.

Neither of the heavier limbs of TCK 106 is a complaint offence. The first sentence of TCK 106/1 and the whole of TCK 106/2 are prosecuted whether or not anyone asks for it, and so is blackmail under TCK 107. A threat reported by a third party runs on the same basis.

An account that hides who you are

Among the circumstances that lift the range to two to seven years, TCK 106/2 lists a threat made by a person who has put themselves into a state of not being recognisable, by unsigned letter or by special signs. Written for anonymous letters, it is read onto messages sent from a number or profile that conceals the sender. The consequence is not only length. CMK 100/4 bars remand where the upper limit is not more than two years, other than for offences committed intentionally against bodily integrity. TCK 106/1 sits on that line. TCK 106/2 does not.

Repetition is one offence, counted upward

Where the same offence is committed against the same person at different times under a single decision to commit it, TCK 43 requires one sentence, increased by between one quarter and three quarters. Forty messages are not forty counts. The same structure has a second effect: under TCK 66/6 the limitation period for a chain of acts runs from the last one, so an old thread is dated by its most recent message.

Group chats, and what came after

A threat sent in a group by two people acting together engages TCK 106/2 on a different limb. Where the material also insults and was seen by others, TCK 125/4 raises the insult penalty by one sixth for the public element, dealt with under insult and social media offences. And under TCK 106/3, where killing, wounding or damage to property is actually carried out for the purpose of the threat, it is punished separately — which is how a message followed by a scuffle becomes two files, the second an assault allegation.

Turkish procedure has a statutory settlement, uzlaştırma, and threat is one of the few offences inside it that does not depend on a complaint. CMK 253/1-b-3 places threat under the first paragraph of TCK 106 in the closed list of offences for which a settlement attempt shall be made whether or not a complaint is required. Where there is sufficient suspicion to prosecute, the file goes to the mediation bureau, and a settlement performed during the investigation ends in a decision not to prosecute.

Two things take that route away. The first is the article charged: CMK 253/3 excludes persistent following under TCK 123/A and insult under TCK 125 from mediation altogether, although both depend on a complaint. The second operates silently. The same paragraph provides that where an offence within the scope of mediation was committed together with an out-of-scope offence against the same victim, the settlement provisions do not apply at all. A threat file that would have settled on its own stops settling the moment TCK 123/A or TCK 125 is added to it. What the bureau does, and what accepting or refusing an offer means, is set out under criminal mediation.

Assume the complainant will be represented: CMK 234/1-a-3 lets a victim with no lawyer ask the bar association to appoint one at the investigation stage in persistent following files. How TCK 106, TCK 123/A and the older TCK 123 differ, what a file has to establish, and how a Law no. 6284 protection order runs alongside the criminal case are set out on stalking and threat allegations in Türkiye.