The teenager who “insulted” Erdogan is out of jail pending trial. Oooh really? How can they be sure he won’t insult again? It’s terrifying and reckless to let such a violent insulter walk around freely when at any moment he might say something hostile about the president of Turkey omigod.
Turkey’s penal code makes it a crime to insult the president.
As he left the courthouse in Konya, the boy said: “There is no question of taking a step back from our path, we will continue along this road.”
There has been growing concern amid rights groups in Turkey at what they see as a clampdown on freedom of speech.
Ya think?
The boy was arrested at school on Wednesday and taken for questioning.
His speech, given to commemorate the killing of a Turkish soldier by Islamists in the 1920s, was recorded on video and broadcast by Dogan News Agency.
In it, he defended secularism and the principles of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish republic.
He reportedly called Mr Erdogan the “thieving owner of the illegal palace”, referring to a controversial 1,150-room palace inaugurated by the president in October.
And for that appalling crime, the police went to his school and arrested him.
The arrest sparked fierce criticism of Mr Erdogan, with Attila Kart, a member of opposition party CHP, saying the president was creating “an environment of fear, oppression and threat”.
Mr Erdogan, who was elected president in August after serving as prime minister for 11 years, has faced several corruption allegations in recent years.
He insists they are baseless and part of a “dark plot” to oust him from power by influential cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is in self-imposed exile in the US.
An influential cleric is not what Turkey needs.
What the likes of Erdogan can’t understand is that nothing the boy did could possibly damage him more than his response.
Legitimate politicians don’t need to lock up 16 year old boys out of fear that what they said might diminish them.
@ Phillip Hallam-Baker
Yes, but his ultimate role model isn’t any legitimate politician, it’s a supposed god who will send you to one of the seven levels of hell for such things.
Nothing screams power, charisma, gravitas, manly ruggedness and inner strength like having to have a law that shields you from the insults of children.
He’s turning into a Turkish Putin, paranoid and surrounded by lackeys, but staying in power because the opposition sucks and his muscular religious populism resonates with a big part of the population.