Erdogan Dictatorship and Freedom of Criticism
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has ruled Turkey de facto for more than 20 years and legally for the last 4 years under a “one man” system, holds a record that has gone down in Turkish and world political history: During his tenure, Erdoğan has filed complaints against more than 200,000 citizens of the Republic of Turkey for “insulting him”, about 38,000 of which have resulted in convictions.
The political Islamist dictator is the head of state who has been prosecuted the most times for the crime of “insulting the President”, a special article in Turkey’s criminal code. While his predecessors Suleyman Demirel, Turgut Özal and Abdullah Gül, who are known to be right-wing like him, and General Kenan Evren, who carried out the 1980 coup d’état in Turkey, dissolved the Constitution, the parliament and political parties, tortured thousands of left-wing people in prisons and executed dozens of them, had a total of 1,500 insult lawsuits against citizens, Dictator Erdoğan has filed lawsuits against more than 200,000 people, including the author of these lines, for “insulting him.” (https://m.bianet.org/bianet/insan-haklari/249374-erdogan-38-581-cumhurbaskanina-hakaret-davasi-acti)
During his term in office, Erdoğan received complaints from more than 200,000 Turkish citizens on the grounds of “Insulting the President”, a special privileged article in the Turkish Penal Code, and about 50,000 of them were prosecuted. In other words, one out of every 4 people complained by the Dictator found himself in court. About 33,000 of these people were sentenced to various fines, while more than 5,000 were sentenced to prison. (https://t24.com.tr/yazarlar/fusun-sarp-nebil/cumhurbaskani-erdogan-deprem-bolgesindeki-hakaret-davalarini-geri-cekti-mi,39064) What is more serious is that 128 of the convicted people are under the age of 18, and 28 of them are 12–14 years old. In 2020 alone, 290 of those sued by Erdoğan were children. (https://m.bianet.org/bianet/siyaset/247487-290-cocuga-cumhurbaskanina-hakaretten-dava-acildi)
Erdoğan sometimes stretches the personal law, which he uses as a weapon against his critics, for “political bribery”. For example, before the presidential elections in 2018, Erdoğan declared that he “pardoned all those who insulted him and dropped the lawsuits.” (https://www.dw.com/tr/erdo%C4%9Fan-hakaret-davalar%C4%B1n%C4%B1-geri-%C3%A7ekiyorum/a-19438478) A similar situation occurred after last month’s earthquake disasters that affected Turkey’s Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia and Syrian Kurdistan. The inability of state institutions to intervene in the disaster areas, especially in the first three days of the earthquake, and the fact that tens of thousands of people were left to freeze to death under the rubble, caused great social anger, and Erdoğan and his government were the target of intense criticism on social media. The Erdoğan regime even found the solution in temporarily blocking Twitter in the country and completely shutting down nearly 400 opposition newspapers and social media accounts, as well as the Reddit-like forum EkşiSözlük, a site widely used by Generation Z in particular. Among those who harshly criticized Erdoğan during these protests were earthquake victims. The rebellious and reproachful words of the citizens who lost their homes, workplaces and families in the earthquake on social media first led to “insulting the President” lawsuits being filed against them, and then Dictator Erdoğan announced that he had “withdrawn and dropped the lawsuits filed against the citizens of the earthquake zone” as if he had done them a favor by showing a great grace.
On the other hand, Erdogan has vigorously denied to the foreign press and world public opinion that there is such a repressive and dictatorial regime in Turkey and has tried to paint a rosy picture. For example, Dictator Erdoğan visited New York in 2021 and was the guest of an interview with journalist Margaret Brennan on the CBS channel. During the interview for the TV show “Face the Nation”, Brennan was surprised by Erdogan’s answers to questions about human rights and the 200,000 lawsuits filed against him for defamation, saying, “So you believe these things.” Brennan then cited the Committee to Protect Journalists and said that Turkey has the second highest number of journalists in prison after China, and that more journalists are imprisoned in Turkey than Iran and Saudi Arabia. Erdoğan interrupted Brennan at this point and said, “I don’t accept any of this.” At this point, the US journalist reminded Erdoğan of the insult lawsuits and said, “Human rights lawyers say that 200 thousand citizens are being investigated just for insulting you.” Erdoğan said, “I don’t trust those institutions you call international” and added that “there are no such cases.” (https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/kibris-zirvesi-oncesi-baspiskopos-tartisma-yaratti-kibrisli-turkler-ayni-haklara-sahip-olamaz-haber-1536484)
On the other hand, Dictator Erdoğan’s attempts to silence his critics with personalized laws and to imprison his opponents have been repeatedly found unjust by the European Court of Human Rights. According to Turkish law, when domestic remedies are exhausted, i.e. when a conviction in a case is finalized by the highest court, it is possible to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights. As a result of these appeals, the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly found the Turkish state unjust for violating freedom of expression and freedom of criticism and sentenced it to pay compensation to the victims. In its most recent ruling, the Court stated that “there cannot be a law that is personalized and aimed at protecting only one politician” and asked the Turkish state to cancel the relevant law. (https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-dunya-58969857)
While Erdoğan’s critics in Turkey are facing jail sentences, in Europe, a freedom of speech and criticism case in which Erdoğan is a party has slapped the dictator in the face. Wolfgang Kubicki, Deputy Speaker of the German Bundestag and a member of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan a “sewer rat” at an election event organized by his party in the city of Hildesheim in Lower Saxony. (https://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-summon-germany-ambassador-parliament-vice-president-erdogan-sewer-rat-bundestag-wolfgang-kubicki/) “I described Mr. Erdoğan as a ‘sewer rat’ during a small episode at an election event in Lower Saxony,” Kubicki told Deutsche Welle (DW). “A sewer rat is a small, cute, but at the same time clever and cunning creature. That’s why it also appears as the main character in many children’s stories, for example in the books ‘Kalle the sewer rat’ and ‘Ratatouille’.” (https://www.dw.com/tr/alman-siyaset%C3%A7i-kubickiden-erdo%C4%9Fana-hakaret/a-63253642)
Erdoğan also filed a complaint against Kubicki. However, his criminal complaint was rejected by the relevant prosecutor’s office. The prosecutor’s office in Hildesheim announced that it saw no reason for an investigation. “Due to the lack of sufficient evidence, there is no need for prosecution and the investigation has been discontinued accordingly,” the prosecutor’s office wrote in its letter on the decision. The prosecutor was quoted as saying that the right to freedom of expression outweighed Erdoğan’s “right to personal honor” and that “although the word ‘sewer rat’ was a sharp and highly exaggerated criticism, it was a genuine reference to the refugee issue.” (https://www.ozgurpolitika.com/haberi-lagim-faresi-meselesi-171312)
Final note: I, the author of these lines, was sentenced to 2 years in prison in Turkey for insulting Dictator Erdoğan on my personal Facebook account and I am currently living in exile. (https://www.duvarenglish.com/turkish-journalist-kaan-goktas-sentenced-to-prison-for-insulting-erdogan-over-300-year-old-poem-news-59422)
