Journalist from Cyprus sentenced in Turkey for insulting the President

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Şener Levent, the Editor-in-Chief of the Avrupa newspaper published in Cyprus, has been sentenced to 11 months and 20 days in prison for insulting the President of Turkey (Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code) in his article titled "Kurds and Us."

The verdict was issued on March 10, 2023, but it was not officially communicated to Levent until August. Levent did not share the details of the court that issued the decision and announced that he disregarded the verdict. Claiming that he is being tried in absentia, Levent stated, "I reject it," and questioned the existence of a fair and independent judiciary in Turkey, saying, "Have they left an impartial and independent judiciary in Turkey? The courts are at the service of Tayyip Erdoğan."

In his article related to this issue, Levent also reminded readers that there are at least 60 imprisoned journalists in Turkey.

Levent's article titled "Kurds and Us" criticized the alliance of three out of the four political parties in the Turkish Parliament regarding the Kurdish issue. He wrote, "Three out of four parties in the Parliament have united on this issue... They have joined forces to expel the Kurdish party that remains outside this alliance from the Parliament and imprison them... They are all with the authoritarian dictator who has vowed to crush the Kurds... When the oppression of the Kurds comes to the fore, even the dictator's corruption is forgotten... While such a massacre is happening in the eastern provinces, there is silence from the west."

Previous conviction

On December 8, 2017, Levent faced another trial, this time for a cartoon published in the newspaper called "Afrika" (the former name of the European Newspaper). He was acquitted in the trial in Cyprus, but in Turkey, he was sentenced to one year in prison by the 63rd Criminal Court of First Instance in Ankara. The prison sentence was converted into a fine of 9,000 Turkish Lira.

The controversial cartoon depicted an ancient statue in front of a Greek flag, with the statue appearing to urinate on the head of President Erdoğan, and the caption "From the Greek perspective..." was written on it. This cartoon had led to an attempted lynching of the employees of the Afrika newspaper. (HA/PE)