A Turkish court on Tuesday sentenced Hüseyin Kocabıyık, a former lawmaker from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), to more than two years in prison for “insulting the president,” ordering his release under an international travel ban, the T24 news website reported.
The court handed down the prison sentence but, considering Kocabıyık’s situation including 72 days of pretrial detention, released him pending its execution. This means the sentence has been legally imposed but is not being enforced immediately, although imprisonment could be enforced later under certain conditions.
Kocabıyık was taken into custody on October 7, a day after the Cumhuriyet daily published an interview in which he criticized the ruling AKP as a network of favoritism and patronage that rewards loyalty while leaving no room for dissent.
He was expelled from the AKP earlier this year after sharply criticizing the detention of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, which he described as “a coup” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan staged against himself.
İmamoğlu, a senior member of main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), was detained on March 19 and arrested four days later on corruption charges widely criticized as politically motivated, triggering Turkey’s largest protests in the last decade amid claims that the case targeted President Erdoğan’s main rival ahead of the 2028 election.
Under Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code, insulting the president is a criminal offense in Turkey. The law has been criticized by human rights and press freedom advocates, who say it is used to prosecute journalists, politicians and ordinary citizens for expressing critical views of the president or even satirizing him indirectly.
In 2021 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the law should be amended or repealed, stating that giving special protection to the president stifles public debate and chills dissent. International human rights organizations have also repeatedly urged the Turkish government to review the law, which they describe incompatible with democratic norms and international free speech standards.
