Posted on 07/21/2016 9:08:49 AM PDT by Fitzy_888
Miss Turkey 2006 has been found guilty for sharing a poem that insulted Turkish President Erdogan.
Erdogans dictatorship continues to crack down on potential threats to the Turkish state. This time, the dangerous Miss Turkey 2006 (27-year-old Merve Buyuksarac) has been found guilty for sharing a poem that insulted Sultan Erdogan.
The Istanbul court gave Miss Turkey a suspended sentence of 14 months for publicly insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on condition that she does not insult the Sultan again within the next five years.
Merve Buyuksarac is the latest of over 2,000 defamation cases President Erdogan has filed in two years.
The Turkish law bans insulting the president something that is quite unbecoming of a NATO member, and EU partner.
The case was based on a satirical verse she reposted on her Instagram account in 2014.
The so-called Masters Poem, an adaptation of the Turkish national anthem, allegedly criticizes Erdogan, who served as prime minister for more than a decade prior to becoming president and has often been called Buyuk Usta [the Big Master]. The poem did not mention Erdogan by name, but made reference to a corruption scandal that allegedly involved his family.
During the hearings, the Presidents lawyer, Hatice Ozay, stressed that Buyuksaracs Instagram post had gone beyond the limits of criticism and was in fact an attack on Erdogans personal rights.
Buyuksarac was briefly arrested at the time the post was made, but then freed as she denied insulting Erdogan. The case however resurfaced, with Tuesdays courts decision based on a previously rarely-used Turkish law that forbids insulting the head of state.
The law has been used increasingly often lately to silence those critical of Erdogans policies. Since becoming president in 2014, he has filed up to 2,000 cases under this law in trials targeting journalists, foreign and domestic, academics, politicians, comedians, and now models.
This spring has in fact been rich with cases of Ankaras witch-hunt on those critical of the current government.
Also on Tuesday, Cengiz Candar, a former columnist for Radikal and Hurriyet newspapers whos been in the profession for over 40 years, appeared in Istanbul court accused of insulting Erdogan in a series of articles he wrote in the summer of 2015, criticizing Turkeys renewed conflict against Kurdish rebels. The veteran journalist and an adviser to the late Turkish head of state Turgut Ozal faces up to four years in prison if found guilty.
These court cases must come to an end, he told reporters outside the courthouse. These trials must immediately end with acquittals so that the presidency of the Turkish Republic can preserve its respectability.
In March, the Turkish government shut down and reformed opposition newspaper Zaman, previously a strong critic of the President. Overnight the newspaper turned into a government mouthpiece.
Four Turkish academics faced trial after having been charged with spreading terrorist propaganda. Their alleged crime was to denounce the renewed conflict with Turkeys Kurds, being part of a group of more than 1,000 scholars who signed a declaration in January that was critical of the Turkish governments military intervention into the predominantly Kurdish southeast of the country.
Foreign journalists have also been targeted and arrested. The latest incidents involved German TV journalist Volker Schwenck and Dutch journalist Ebru Umar. Schwenck was going to the Turkish-Syrian border to report on refugees, but instead was denied entry into Turkey and spent six hours in detention at Istanbul airport. Umar was briefly detained in Turkey over Twitter posts critical of the Turkish President.
Turkey also shut down Russian news agency Sputniks website in the country and blacklisted its Istanbul bureau chief, refusing him entry to the country and seizing his residence permit and press credentials
Erdogans administration doesnt seem to tolerate any criticism at all. Any journalist, would they criticize Erdogan, risk being imprisoned and legally harassed. In short, journalism is in coma in Turkey, Dr. Y. Alp Aslandogan, President of the Alliance for Shared Values and a Board Member of the Gulen Institute told RT, adding that he overall situation with respect to fundamental freedoms in Turkey will only get worse unless the Turkish people interfere.
The fate of the country is up to the people of Turkey. Unless there is an outcry from Turkish people I dont know how this situation can be resolved. Im just hoping that Turkish people will awaken to whats going on.
Obama supporting this tyrant. Gives you an idea as to what he’d love to do here to us.
Ignoring the further bit of evidence our ostensible NATO ally Erdogan is a full-blown Islamo-fascist, “Miss Turkey” has a strange ring to it.
Oh, for the days when even little kids understood that sticks and stones could break their bones but words would never hurt them.
She made a big misturkey.
Erdogan = friend of Obama
The wonderful, fresh air of the Arab spring.
She was Hungary. But later slipped on Greece.
“Im just hoping that Turkish people will awaken to whats going on.
It is probably too late for them. The peasants buy the Islamofacist socialist rhetoric and all those who would oppose him are now being purged. This is a mess and I don’t think it will end well.
Glad you found those, because in most of her pics she is pretty darn homely.
I’ll sponsor this poor immigrant!
pretty sure she wont look like that after a year in a Turkish prison.
[ Erdogan = friend of Obama ]
Erdogan is a complete ISLAMO-NAZI
Obama also loved the Mooselimb Brotherhood leader of Egypt and hated the Military Coup that kicked his sorry ass out and hated Al-SiSi who could truly be the only leader Egypt had in a while who could be called a moderate when it comes to Islam.
Tells us that Obama is at the very LEAST a Islamist supremacist SYMPATHIZER, if not OUTRIGHT ENABLER...
Asylum at my house?
Despotic rule. Wow. Wait until he gets his military forces built up. It’s going to be a big show.
Erdy’s just probably pissed because she turned him down.
Hell hath no fury like Muslim tyrant scorned.
What judge would let her off right now with Erdogen arresting judges he disagrees with?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.