The chief editor of the Redaktif website, Hakan Gülseven, who was detained on Friday in Balıkesir province on charges of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been released on judicial probation.
“A warrant was issued for me for three different issues. Insulting the president, insulting the government, provoking people to rebel, praising Ulaş Bayraktaroğlu [Socialist Democracy Party member] are among the accusations. Those accusations were made due to my columns,” Gülseven told the Birgün daily.
“The most interesting thing is that the complaint made by a citizen-informant was taken seriously by the prosecutor’s office. The informant filed a complaint about me and prosecutor issued a warrant and got me detained. These citizen-informants will give us a lot of headaches. It’s incredible. I was released on judicial probation and banned from going abroad,” he added.
A total of 4,936 cases were launched against people and 1,080 people were convicted of insulting President Erdoğan in 2016, according to data from Turkey’s Justice Ministry.
The report indicated that 4,750 people over the age of 18, 36 foreign nationals and two legal entities were accused of insult, leading to the conviction of 1,080 people on insult charges, of whom 867 received suspended sentences. A total of 679 people were acquitted.