A man in Turkey’s eastern Tunceli province will stand trial on charges of insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on two occasions, the Diken news website reported.
Aydın Aydoğan faces eight years, two months in prison for social media posts ridiculing Erdogan and government officials. In a first tweet shared on October 13, 2022 on X, previously known as Twitter, he mocked an inauguration ceremony concerning the completion of some agricultural and animal husbandry projects in the east of Turkey. Part of the ceremony involved the introduction of portable toilets bought for agricultural workers and Aydoğan implied government officials had attended a ceremony for the “inauguration of portable toilets.”
Although Erdoğan did not take part in the ceremony, Aydoğan’s tweet referenced a previous tweet by imprisoned Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtaş, who had once said “Erdoğan and his gang” would even attend the opening of a soda can if they were invited.
The Tunceli Governor’s Office said at the time that the inauguration ceremony concerned the completion of some agricultural and animal husbandry projects in the east of Turkey and had nothing to do with portable toilets. It said legal action would be taken against those who spread fake news about the ceremony.
In a second tweet shared on August 4, 2021 Aydoğan implied Erdoğan and the government were complicit in a coup attempt that took place on July 15, 2016. “Who was the perpetrator of July 15? Everyone knows including the brother-in-law,” he said, alluding to a previous statement by Erdoğan in which he said he found out a coup was taking place from his brother-in-law.
Aydoğan’s first hearing will take place on January 9, 2024.
Insulting the president is a crime in Turkey, according to the controversial Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). Whoever insults the president can face up to four years in prison, a sentence that can be increased if the crime was committed through the mass media.
Thousands of people in Turkey are under investigation, and most of them are under the threat of imprisonment, over alleged insults of Erdoğan. The insult cases generally stem from social media posts shared by Erdoğan opponents. The Turkish police and judiciary perceive even the most minor criticism of Erdoğan or his government as an insult.
Since Erdoğan was first elected president in 2014, more than 160,000 people have been investigated on allegations of insult; criminal charges have been filed against 45,000 of them, and 13,000 people have been convicted of the crime of insulting the president.
