A Turkish court has arrested a man accused of denigrating religious values in a social media video and insulting Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey.
According to the news outlet Gazete Duvar, the suspect, identified only by his initials A.B., allegedly committed multiple offenses in the video, including “denigrating religious values,” “insulting the memory of Atatürk,” “insulting martyrs” and “insulting Turkish societal values.”
The location and specific content of the video has not been shared by any news outlets that may have knowledge of it, possibly to avoid investigation by Turkish authorities.
Authorities launched the investigation on December 27 after reviewing the video. Police later discovered that A.B. had 21 prior criminal records and in addition had been listed as a missing person.
A.B. was detained on December 28 in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district following an investigation by the Istanbul Police Department’s Preventive Services Division. After completing police procedures, A.B. appeared before a magistrate court, which ordered his formal arrest, officials confirmed.
Turkey’s laws that criminalize insult, denigration and fomenting enmity are regularly used by the authorities to detain, arrest and prosecute individuals, particularly when acts or commentary attract widespread attention on social media. Some have described this dynamic as the “Twitter court,” referring to the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Comments concerning Atatürk or Islamic symbols often cause tension between those with predominantly secular or religious conservative views in Turkey.
