By NEOnline/GK
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
neurope.eu
As many as 1,845 cases have been opened against people who are accused of insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan since he came to office in 2014
Turkish Justice Ministry allowed 1,845 cases on charges of insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to go ahead since 2014.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag announced the figure in the Turkish parliament responding to questions by opposition MPs. Bozdag, defended the prosecutions, saying: “I am unable to read the insults leveled at our president. I start to blush.”
According to Turkish law, filing a legal case on charges of “defaming the Turkish president” must be done upon approval from the Justice Ministry.
In October 2015, the Ministry approved the arrest of two boys, aged 12 and 13, for tearing down posters showing Erdogan. Moreover, in December 2015, a lawsuit has been opened against the editor-in-chief of Turkey’s leading secular Hurriyet newspaper, Sedat Ergin, with a demand that the journalist serve five years in prison for “insulting president.” Also in December, a Turkish medical doctor, Bilgin Ciftci, was on trial for sharing an image of Erdogan comparing him with the well-known Gollum, from the movie Lord of the Rings.
In January 2016, the Freedom in the World 2016 report “downgraded” Turkey’s human rights profile reporting that the country should be considered as “partly free.” Moreover, the Committee to Protect Journalists, reported that with 14 journalists imprisoned as of the end of 2015, Turkey remains among the worst jailers of journalists worldwide.
According to AP, Erdogan has been accused of aggressively using the “defaming the Turkish president” law to silent any kind of opposition. Before Erdogan, the law was used only in extreme cases.
The two, however, were released from prison last week pending the outcome of the trial after Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled that their rights had been violated. Erdogan severely criticized the court’s ruling, saying he did not respect it and would not abide by it.