An İstanbul court on Tuesday handed down an 11-month suspended sentence to LeMan magazine cartoonist Doğan Pehlevan for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in posts from an X account he denies owning.
The İstanbul 36th Criminal Court of First Instance handed down the sentence at the fifth hearing of his trial, rejecting defense arguments that prosecutors had failed to prove the account belonged to Pehlevan, the T24 news website reported, citing the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA).
The prosecution is separate from the case against Pehlevan and other LeMan employees over a cartoon published last year that government officials claimed depicted the Prophet Muhammad.
Pehlevan spent more than four months in pretrial detention before being released in November 2025.
Pehlevan did not attend Tuesday’s hearing. His lawyers, Bilge Batur and Samet Fidan, and a lawyer representing Erdoğan were present.
Batur told the court that ownership of the X account had not been established and that the report used to link it to Pehlevan was procedurally flawed and could not be admitted as evidence. She claimed that even if the post were attributed to her client, its content did not constitute an insult.
Fidan likewise said the account’s ownership had not been verified and sought an acquittal.
The prosecutor repeated a request for punishment under Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code, which criminalizes insulting the president. The court accepted the prosecution’s argument that the offense had been established.
Pehlevan has consistently denied having a social media account. At an earlier hearing, he said: “I don’t have a Twitter account. I never have. The posts in question are not consistent with my style,” according to the MLSA.
In July the court kept his travel ban in place while giving his lawyers additional time to examine a report submitted by the police cybercrime department.
Separate prosecution over cartoon
Pehlevan was arrested in July 2025 after a cartoon in LeMan’s June 26 issue prompted a criminal investigation and protests targeting the magazine.
The drawing showed two men named Muhammad and Moses greeting each other above a bombed city. LeMan said it depicted victims of war and was a critique of Israel’s bombing of Gaza, denying that it portrayed religious figures.
Erdoğan condemned the cartoon, while senior government officials publicly targeted the magazine and its staff. Protesters attacked a nearby bar frequented by LeMan employees, and police clashed with the crowd.
A court ordered Pehlevan’s release pending trial in the cartoon case on November 14, 2025, but he remained imprisoned because of the separate presidential insult prosecution. He was released under judicial supervision four days later.
The cartoon case remains pending, with its next hearing scheduled for October 13, according to Cartooning for Peace.
Turkey’s presidential insult law has attracted criticism from freedom of expression advocates.
In its 2021 judgment in Vedat Şorli v. Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights found that a prosecution under Article 299 violated freedom of expression. It said granting the president special protection against insult was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights and that even a suspended prison sentence could discourage expression on matters of public interest.
This article is republished from Turkish Minute.
