A citizen was sentenced to five months of imprisonment due to “insult” after writing on social media: “Here, take this election, you devil,” implying that President Erdoğan won the elections in a corrupted way in 2018. Ankara 46th Criminal Court of First Instance based the imprisonment sentence on the crime of “insult” in accordance with Article 125 of the Turkish Criminal Code, even though the lawsuit was initially filed due to “insulting the President” in accordance with Article 299 of the Turkish Criminal Code. In the reasoned decree, the court indicated that the impartiality of the President is legally annulled now after the referendum in 2017, recording, “the convict has committed the crime of insulting Erdoğan related to his activities as a party Chairman and a political person, not his activities as the President of Republic.”
Even though the decree reveals that Article 299 of the Turkish Criminal Code can’t be applied to Erdoğan now, who is a political leader now and not the President of Republic, it also showed that the articles restricting freedom of expression in the criminal code are not limited to Article 299 of the Turkish Criminal Code, continuing to penalise “criticism.”
09.03.2020
cumhuriyet.com.tr