A Former Miss Turkey Is Convicted of Insulting President Erdogan

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/world/middleeast/miss-turkey-convicted-erdogan.html

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ANKARA, Turkey — A court on Tuesday convicted a former Miss Turkey of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan through social media postings and gave her a 14-month suspended sentence, amid deepening concerns that the country is moving toward an increasingly authoritarian form of rule.

The court in Istanbul found Merve Buyuksarac, 27, guilty of insulting a public official, but immediately suspended the sentence on the condition that she does not reoffend within the next five years.

Her lawyer, Emre Telci, said he would file a formal objection to the verdict and appeal her case at the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg, France.

Ms. Buyuksarac, a model, who was crowned Miss Turkey in 2006, was briefly detained last year for sharing a satirical poem on her Instagram account in 2014. Prosecutors considered it insulting to Mr. Erdogan, who was prime minister at the time. She has denied insulting him.

Since becoming president in 2014, Mr. Erdogan has filed nearly 2,000 defamation cases under a previously seldom-used law that bars insulting the president. Free speech advocates say the law is being used aggressively to silence and intimidate critics.

The trials have targeted journalists, academics and even schoolchildren. Coupled with a crackdown on opposition media and journalists, the trials have sounded alarms over the erosion of rights and freedoms in a country that was once seen as a model of Muslim democracy.

“These insult trials are being initiated in series; they are being filed automatically,” Mr. Telci said after the verdict. “Merve was prosecuted for sharing a posting that did not belong to her. My client has been convicted for words that do not belong to her.”

Thousands of others also posted the poem, which is a satirical adaptation of the Turkish national anthem. It did not mention Mr. Erdogan by name, but alluded to a corruption scandal that is said to have involved his family.