A Turkish court has handed down a suspended sentence of almost a year to a woman for criticizing a government ban on Instagram on charges of insulting the president, the private DHA news agency reported.
Dilruba Kayserilioğlu, 33, was initially detained for 18 days after criticizing a government-imposed Instagram ban in a street interview last summer. In the same interview the woman also criticized President Recep Tayyip Erdoğa for establishing a one-man rule in the country.
The Instagram ban, which was enforced from August 2 to August 10, affected millions of users across Turkey. It was implemented after government officials accused the platform of censoring content related to Palestinian militant group Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh.
A court in the western province of İzmir handed down a prison sentence of 11 months, 20 days to Kayserilioğlu on charges of insulting the president, which is a crime under the Turkish Penal Code (TCK).
This is the second prison sentence Kayserilioğlu was given due to her remarks in the street interview. She was convicted of the charge of “inciting hatred and enmity among the public” in September and was given a suspended sentence of seven-and-a-half-months, meaning that she will not serve time if she remains free of any criminal offenses for the next five years.
The case has drawn criticism from human rights advocates, who view it as part of a broader crackdown on free expression in Turkey.
In Turkey thousands of people are investigated, prosecuted or convicted of insult charges against the president, which is a crime in Turkey, according to the controversial Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). Whoever insults the president can face up to four years in prison, a sentence that can be increased if the crime was committed through the mass media.