Ankara, Turkey – A Turkish satirical magazine says a court sentenced two of its cartoonists to 11 months in prison for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and later commuted the sentence to a fine.
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The Penguen weekly said Wednesday cartoonists Bahadir Baruter and Ozer Aydogan were each ordered to pay 7,000 Turkish Lira ($2,700).
The two are the latest to be prosecuted for alleged insults to Erdogan as Turkey cracks down on freedom of expression and silences critical voices.
They were on trial for a cartoon published in August depicting newly elected Erdogan arriving at his palace and criticizing aides for not slaughtering journalists at the inauguration.
The court deemed that an aide in the cartoon was drawn making an obscene Turkish hand gesture and considered it an insult to Erdogan.
What? No beheading? That’s not right!
We’re not expecting the white house or the un rights commission to express any concern about any of this, after all it’s not israel.
If Obama instituted the same laws here could you imagine the over crowding at the prisons. At least this would help solve the housing crisis.
Recep Tayyip-yap erDOGan was insulted. … Poor baby!
Turkey! … Why don’t you grow up already?!
Maybe, he’ll ask Israel to apologize once again for the flotilla incident.