A sixty-two year-old woman was sentenced to 11 months and 20 days in jail for carrying a banner which called President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “indecent” during a protest in 2015.
A report by Turkish daily, Hürriyet, said on Tuesday that the woman carried a banner which read “We turn our backs on indecent Erdoğan,” on June 3, 2015, in reference to Erdoğan’s remarks during a rally in Iğdır in the same month.
Addressing a group of women who protested him by turning their backs while he was passing the street with a convoy, Erdoğan had said “ over there… a group… excuse me… my decency does not allow me to say… [They] are making a sign by turning their backs.”
Didim 3rd Criminal Court of First Instance, which sentenced the woman to jail time, said that the woman carried out a concrete action which could hurt the complainant’s dignity by carrying the banner in public.
More than 1,500 cases were opened against people for “insulting the president” since Erdoğan came to office in 2014.