Citizen sentenced to prison for ‘insulting Erdoğan’ with a news headline

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President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hit the headline of Germany's BILD newspaper on November 5, 2016. The newspaper said, "Dictator Erdoğan? Where will all this end?" This news report was then covered by Turkey's Diken news website with the title, "German BILD newspaper: Turkey is being pushed to a civil war."

Put on trial for sharing the news on social media, Mehmet Şah Tekiner (62) has been sentenced to 1 year, 3 months in prison for "insulting the President" as per the Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code.

As reported by Mezopotamya Agency (MA), an investigation was launched against Tekiner over the news report which was used by several other media outlets in addition to Diken, which faced no access block in Turkey and which is still accessible online. The citizen was summoned to give his statement at the Diyarbakır Security Directorate as part of this investigation.

Tekiner said that he did not know how to use social media and did not have a social media account. He indicated that the Facebook account of "Mehmet Şah Tekiner" did not belong to him, adding that it was the first time that he had witnessed it there at the security directorate.

The security directorate considered his statement to "be aimed at evading penalty" and did not accredit the statement. That being the case, the Justice Ministry gave permission for the prosecution for the offense of "publicly insulting the President" on June 29, 2019.

Facing up to 4 years in prison, Tekiner started standing trial at the Diyarbakır 4th Penal Court of First Instance.

Making his final defense as to the prosecutor's opinion as to the accusations which demanded his penalization, Mehmet Şah Tekiner reiterated that he did not have a social media account and that the related account might have been opened by his children or grandchildren.

Lawyer referred to ECtHR rulings

In his defense, Tekiner's lawyer Resul Tamur referred to the judgements of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and underlined that the related act could not be considered within the scope of insult and that it could be considered a harsh criticism about executives.

Noting that "Erdoğan himself made several statements indicating that he was not a dictator and that no one could call him as such", Tamur said that the elements of the offense charged were not constituted and demanded that his client Mehmet Şah Tekiner be acquitted.

The court has argued that Tekiner's statement was "aimed at avoiding penalty" and ruled that Tekiner shall be sentenced to 1 year, 3 months in prison. The pronouncement of the verdict has been deferred.

Tekiner's lawyer Tamur has applied to the Regional Court of Justice, the court of appeals, against this ruling.

38, 581 court cases in 6 years

In the past six years, when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been the President of Turkey, court cases have been filed against 38,581 people on charge of "insulting the President". When Erdoğan's first 4 years in office and that of Abdullah Gül before him are compared, it is seen that the number of related court cases increased by 19.5 times and by 2,052 percent.

Only in 2020, 45,000 thousand investigations were launched on this charge and 9,773 people faced court cases following these investigations.

In 2018, 2,775 of the 6,270 people were convicted of "insulting the President" while 4,291 of the 13,990 people were convicted of this charge in 2019 and 3,655 of the 9,773 people were convicted in 2020.

In 2020, 290 of the defendants who were put on trial upon Erdoğan's complaints were children. While 84 were in the 12-15 age group, the remaining 206 children are in the 15,18 age group. (HA/SD)