‘Insulting the President’ on Parliamentary Agenda

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Republican People's Party (CHP) Ankara MP Murat Emir has brought the cases filed for "insulting the President" into Parliamentary agenda.

Submitting a parliamentary question to be responded by Minister of Justice Abdulhamit Gül, Emir has asked how many investigations for "insulting the President" as per the Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) have been launched since the Presidential election in 2014.

Underlining that the news of investigations and lawsuits filed against people on charge of "insulting the President" have been reported in the news almost everyday especially over the last years, CHP MP Emir has emphasized that most of the statements in dispute are, in fact, within the scope of "freedom of expression" as per the Article 90 of the Constitution and international conventions signed by Turkey as well as its own laws.

'It has become a tool of oppression'

"The trials in question have become a tool of oppression over the citizens", has Emir indicated further. He has added, "On the one side, thousands of people are put on trial for 'insulting the President' every year; on the other side, all the attacks targeting the opposition end in impunity."

Referring to the lynch attempt against CHP Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu at the funeral of a soldier in Çubuk, Ankara, he has said,

"The investigation launched against the person who attacked our Chair has not been completed for one and a half months."

"If there had been the smallest criticism against [President] Erdoğan, let alone an attack, that person would have been immediately detained and the indictment would have long been prepared", Emir has stated further.

'Not a single day passes without an investigation'

Underlining that "almost not a single day passes without an investigation launched into a statement or an image, thinking that Erdoğan would not like it", Emir has said, "We are going through a period when the rule of law has been trampled upon and the rule of power is prevailing."

Accordingly, CHP Ankara MP Murat Emir has directed the following questions to Minister of Justice Abdulhamit Gül:

• How many of the lawsuits filed for "insulting the President" in the last five years have been concluded? What is the distribution of these concluded lawsuits by years?
• How many of the lawsuits filed for "insulting the President" in the last five years have ended in acquittal? What is the distribution of these verdicts of acquittal by years?
• How many people have been convicted and imprisoned on charge of "insulting the President" over the last five years? What is their distribution by years?
• How many of these people investigated for "insulting the President" in the last five years are under the age of 18? What is their distribution by years? (HA/SD)