Turkish Daily Today’s Zaman newspaper (13.01.16) reports that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been the complainant in 93 criminal complaints for cases of insult in the three-month time frame of October to December 2015, according to a recently released report on news portal bianet.org.
Of the 93 people accused under Articles 125 and 299 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), 42 are journalists.
Article 125 reads, “Anyone undermining the honor, dignity or respectability of another person or who attacks a person’s honor by attributing to them a concrete act or fact, or by means of insult shall be sentenced to imprisonment for a term of between three months and two years or punished with a judicial fine.” As for Article 299, it mandates that anyone convicted of insulting the President serve a jail term of between one and four years.
In the months from October to the end of December, 34 journalists were in prison. Since then, several have been released.
Television suffered from the most censorship with 18 channels being cut off from broadcasting. Access to 13 websites was also blocked, four magazines were censored and books by four authors were removed from circulation.