A prominent Turkish TV journalist has been detained and could face imprisonment after being charged with insulting the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mrs Sedef Kabas, a veteran journalist and an outspoken critic of Erdogan’s human rights abuses and had been tried before on similar charges and spent prison time. Shunned by mainstream media, she launched her YouTube Channel, SedefKabasTV, where she has 86.7K subscribers.
Police detained Sedef Kabaş at her home at 2am on Saturday and took her to a police station, before she faced court and was jailed pending a trial.
The alleged insult was a proverb that Kabaş expressed both on an opposition television channel and her Twitter account.
WATCH: Real Turkey feat Sedef Kabaş: Human rights reform and the hazards of journalism in Turkey
The proverb translates to: “When the ox comes to the palace, he does not become a king. But the palace becomes a barn.”
“The honor of the presidency’s office is the honor of our country … I condemn the vulgar insults made against our president and his office,” Fahrettin Altun, head of Turkey’s communications directorate and Erdogan’s chief spokesman, said.
Merdan Yanardağ, the chief editor of the Tele 1 channel, on which Kabaş made the comment, criticized her arrest.
“Her detention overnight at 2am because of a proverb is unacceptable,” he said. “This stance is an attempt to intimidate journalists, the media and society.”
The law on insulting the president carries a jail sentence of between one and four years.
Last October, Europe’s top human rights court called on Turkey to change the legislation after ruling that a man’s detention under the law violated his freedom of expression.
Thousands have been charged and sentenced over the crime of insulting Erdogan in the seven years since he moved from being prime minister to president. (With Reuters)
Recently, Erdogan administration redoubled its censorship efforts, with famous YouTuber and Yeni Cag daily columnist Mr Evren Devrim Zelyut being briefly detained on a “complaint” by a concerned citizen for defaming Erdogan. Zelyut, too, is a leading dissident, whose YouTube broadcasts highlighting the failure of the administration’s economic policies draw large audiences.
According to pro-opposition daily Cumhuriyet, pro-AKP law expert Prof İzzet Özgenc lamented that Sedef Kabas’ arrest will become a major embarrassment for AKP in the world stage.
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