METU students detained for Erdoğan cartoons

Three METU students who carried a banner with cartoons depicting Erdoğan on commencement day have been detained.

Three students who carried a banner with cartoons depicting Erdoğan as various animals titled “Tayyip Land” in the commencement day ceremony held on Friday have been detained on charges of “insulting the President”. The investigation was launched by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.

The cartoons, originally drawn in 2004 by prominent Turkish caricaturist Erdil Yaşaroğlu, had previously been subject to a lawsuit for the author on the same charges, but the case was dismissed. The weekly humor magazine Penguen had put the drawings on its cover after another prominent caricaturist Musa Kart was convicted on the same charges after depicting a cat with Erdoğan’s head tangled in some yarn. The conviction had later been overturned by the Supreme Court.