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Sweden will not be formally investigating last week’s demonstration in Stockholm in which an effigy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was hung in Stockholm, reported the news site Aftonbladet.
A Kurdish group named the Swedish Solidarity Committee for Rojava published a video on Wednesday comparing Erdoğan to the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who was hung upside down after his execution towards the end of World War II.
The Turkish government were furious after footage showing an effigy of Erdoğan hung by its feet outside Stockholm City Hall during a protest went viral on Twitter.
Sweden’s ambassador to Ankara was summoned on Thursday after the appearance of the video, by Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who protested the incident and demanded that the Swedish government prosecute the protesters.
But the Prosecutor Lucas Eriksson at Stockholm City Prosecutor’s Office has judged that the incident was not a criminal offence.
“I received the case as a claim of defamation but did not think it could amount to defamation. So I decided not to initiate a preliminary investigation,” prosecutor Lucas Eriksson told Aftonbladet on Monday.
The prosecutor said that they use Swedish freedom of demonstration and expression as an example to Turkey of what it really needs.
The Rovaja Committees wrote on Twitter:“History shows how dictators are often annihilated. So for everyone’s sake, Erdoğan: Now take the chance and resign, so you don’t end up upside down in Taksim Square!”
Kurdish refugees are a major issue between Turkey and Sweden, as Turkey wants the Swedish government to extradite certain Kurds. Ankara says that in return for lifting its veto over Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership bids, the two Nordic countries first should hand over nearly 130 people Turkey sees as terrorists.
However, Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on 9 January that Turkey has made certain demands the Nordic country cannot accept as conditions for approving Sweden’s NATO membership.
