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Main opposition party Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has shared “Kingdom of Tayyips” caricature, which led four Middle Eastern Technical University (METU) students to be arrested on charge of “insulting President”, on his Twitter account.
Kılıçdaroğlu denounced the arrest of students at the CHP weekly group meeting held today (July 17), and said, “Being a student at METU is in itself a privilege. None of the banners they carried had violence or insult. It has intelligence and one has to be intelligence to understand it. If you are not smart, what can I tell you”.
The caricature "was acquitted"
Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation into the banner carried during the graduation ceremony at METU on July 6 and charged the students who carried the banner with "insulting the president."
On the banner, there was a caricature which was originally published on the Penguen humor magazine in 2005. Under the heading of the "Kingdom of Tayyips", the caricature depicts the President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the form of an elephant, a cow, camel, frog, snake, duck, giraffe and monkey.
Erdoğan had filed a claim for immaterial compensation of 40 thousand YTL (New Turkish Lira). However, the case was rejected by the 1st Civil Court of First Instance on the ground that the caricature in question is within the scope of "freedom of expression". (EKN/TK)
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