Turkish Writer Convicted for ’Insulting’ President Erdogan

Local Editor

A Turkish court convicted a writer of "insulting" President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a book about last year’s [2013] mass anti-government protests, handing him a suspended jail sentence of almost one year, media reported on Wednesday.

The Turkish court in a closed hearing on Tuesday sentenced Erol Ozkoray to 11 months and 20 days in prison, but suspended the term for five years, the reports said.

He was convicted of "publicly insulting a civil servant" and damaging "Erdogan’s dignity and honour in the eyes of the public," Dogan news agency reported.
Ozkoray wrote in the book that the protests evolved into a "revolution" against the authoritarian tendencies of Erdogan’s government.

The protests began in June last year [2013] as a local movement to stop Istanbul’s Gezi Park from being razed but quickly blew up into wider nationwide demonstrations against Erdogan. Eight people died and thousands were injured as police launched a brutal crackdown.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team