The Buyucekmece Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office prepared a new indictment against musician Ferhat Tunc for his Twitter posts. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is listed as the injured party in the indictment that accuses Tunc of insulting the President. The indictment was accepted by the Buyukcekmece Criminal Court of General Jurisdiction No.7.

FROM THE INDICTMENT

Some of the “criminal” tweets included in the indictment are as follows:

- “Latin American caricaturist Carlos Latuff said with his art what the whole world sees in the Jarablus Operation.”

- “How can a man known in the world as disreputable and a remorseless dictator in his own country be #DünyayıTitretenAdamRTE [“Erdogan The Man Who Shook The World”]?”

- “As if... The millions who voted for HDP have enough dignity that they won’t bow down to the dictator you bend over backwards for.”

- “This is the atrocity Dictator Erdogan and his government think Nusaybin deserves, not an image from World War II!!!”

TUNC: THESE ARE DARK TIMES

Ferhat Tunc spoke to ANF and said: “I learned from my lawyers that there are two new cases against me, for insulting President Erdogan and the then-Prime Minister Binali Yildirim in Twitter posts from 2016. I believe they will continue to file lawsuits for my Tweets from previous years.”

Tunc said he is an artist:

“Of course I have the right to criticize anybody who does wrong in this country, even if they are the president. But unfortunately these are dark times when expressing your ideas is not considered a right. They have no tolerance for even the slightest criticism. I have been made the target in a hostile approach, to be honest. I believe this is related to my sensitivity in matters of fundamental rights and freedoms. The courts are used in this country as authorities to silence people and to make them surrender.”