Irem Tuncer-Ebetürk, WZB, Berlin Social Science Center.
Defne Över, Texas A&M University, Department of Sociology.
“My daughter insulted our president, and I find this unacceptable” reads a legal complaint letter by M.C. from January 2019. “It is my father who repeatedly insulted the president while raising his children with anti-government sentiments,” claimed his daughter as she retaliated with a counter-complaint. The same year, in another city in Turkey, H.S. filed a similar complaint against three people he played cards with at the neighborhood coffee shop. After having a verbal fight with them, H.S. headed to the police station and accused them of insulting the president. In yet another case, this time in a small village, the elected head of the village filed complaints against 18 different people for insulting the president and being members of terrorist organizations. These are examples from many court cases where citizens instrumentalized Article 299 of the Turkish Criminal Code to penalize adversaries in family, neighborhood, or community conflicts.
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