In an interview with the American CBS television, Erdogan said that “there are no such cases” regarding lawsuits filed due to “insulting the President”. However, the cases that Erdoğan said do not exist were revealed in the official data. According to the 2020 Justice Statistics of the Ministry of Justice, 31,297 investigations were opened on the charge of insulting the President in just one year.
In 9,166 of these investigations, a verdict of non-prosecution was issued, while in 7,790 public cases were filed. In other investigations, decisions were made about lack of authority, lack of jurisdiction, mergers and transfers to other offices. There were
- 682 investigations opened in 2014,
- 7 thousand 216 investigations opened in 2015,
- 38 thousand 254 investigations opened in 2016,
- 20 thousand 539 investigations opened in 2017,
- 26 thousand 115 investigations opened in 2018,
- 36 thousand 66 investigations were opened in 2019.
30.09.2021
Bianet