Turkish lawyer arrested for insulting Erdoğan

AFYONKARAHİSAR

Lawyer Umut Kılıç

A Turkish lawyer was arrested April 21 for “insulting” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during a job interview to become a judge.

“You are not going to let me become a judge anyway. You are the men of Erdoğan the fascist,” Umut Kılıç, a lawyer registered at the bar association of the inner Aegean province of Afyonkarahisar, allegedly said during an argument with the judges who interviewed him, according to sources who spoke to daily Hürriyet.

Kılıç was not admitted as a judge in his first interview. Interviewing judges wrote a note about the incident in the second interview on April 21 and Kılıç was detained by police. He was later arrested by a judge on duty at Ankara Criminal Court of Peace and sent to Sincan Prison.

A group of lawyers from the bar association in Ankara visited Kılıç in prison late April 21, saying they would object to the arrest on April 22.

Scores of people in Turkey have been prosecuted for “insulting” Erdoğan since he was elected president in August 2014. The list includes journalists, teenagers, a singer and even a former Miss Turkey.

Most of the suspects have been released, pending trial. Cartoonists Bahadır Baruter and Özer Aydoğan, however, were sentenced to 11 months in prison last month over a satirical piece on free speech in which they were convicted of including a hidden gesture “insulting” Erdoğan.