Two people in Turkey’s Tekirdağ province were arrested on Wednesday on charges of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on social media, according to a report by online news outlet Diken.
Local gendarmes raided the two men’s houses, and a court in Tekirdağ arrested them immediately. One of them was reportedly previously detained on the same accusation last year.
According to the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) insulting the president carries a sentence of between one and four years. In 2016, 3,658 people were charged with insulting the president.
The Turkish government has investigated 349 social media accounts and taken legal action against 285 users over the last week (Sept.24-Oct.1) on accusations of disseminating propaganda for alleged “terrorist organizations,” the Turkish Interior Ministry announced on Monday.
According to a report by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency on July 21, police teams under the command of the cybercrimes unit have determined the existence of 126,000 social media accounts related to alleged terrorist organizations in the last two years.
The report said about 50,000 out of 68,000 profiled social media accounts that allegedly posted pro-coup messages in the wake of a coup bid in July 2016 belong to alleged members of the Gülen movement.
According to the report, 17,000 of the social media accounts are allegedly linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), while a thousand of them are said to be connected to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
It was also claimed that 60 percent of social media posts believed to be supportive of “terrorist organizations” have been made by alleged members of the Gülen movement. The Turkish government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has labeled the pacifist Gülen movement as a “terrorist organization,” calling it “FETÖ.” (SCF with turkishminute.com)
