Nearly 100 people detained in ten months for insulting Turkey’s president

Almost 100 people have been taken into custody on charges of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the past 10 months, according to a human rights report released by the Republican People's Party (CHP) on Saturday.

The report, launched by CHP İstanbul deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu, says 66 of the 98 people arrested were held on trial.

Recently, physician Dr. Bilgin Çiftçi was accused of insulting Erdoğan after sharing a meme comparing the president's facial expressions to those of Gollum, a character in “The Lord of the Rings” movies. A court has demanded an expert examination of the films and Gollum's character to determine whether a comparison with him is actually an insult.

In October, Çiftçi was expelled from the Public Health Institution of Turkey (THSK) after sharing the meme and allegedly insulting the president.

According to the report, 5,795 people were taken into custody -- 982 of which were arrested -- between January and Oct. 7, 2015 regarding issues pertaining to human rights.

The report also documents the climbing number of websites that have been blocked by a court order in recent years. Presenting a clear upward curve, it states that 15,562 websites were blocked in 2011, 22,536 in 2012, 35,000 in 2013, 40,773 in 2014 and 96,000 in 2015.

Hundreds of people have been charged and others detained after being accused of insulting Erdoğan since he was elected president in August 2014. Journalists and public figures critical of the government in particular have been targeted by the police and prosecutors on the grounds that they have insulted the head of state.

These developments are widely considered a new method of intimidating political opponents who do not share the government's views. Dozens of people, including high-profile media figures Sedef Kabaş, Hidayet Karaca and Mehmet Baransu, high school students, activists and even Merve Büyüksaraç -- a former Miss Turkey -- have been prosecuted for insulting Erdoğan on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Today's Zaman Editor-in-Chief Bülent Keneş was arrested by the İstanbul 7th Criminal Court of Peace on Oct. 10 and detained in prison until a release pending trial was ordered on Oct. 14 over tweets that allegedly insulted President Erdoğan.

Keneş's arrest attracted worldwide condemnation, with a number of press organizations and journalists in Turkey denouncing the ruling, saying that it goes against the principle of media freedom.

Tanrıkulu asks about students arrested after university clash

In a written parliamentary question submitted to Interior Minister Efkan Ala, CHP deputy Tanrıkulu asked how many university students have been thrown out of school in the last two years for political reasons.

Citing a clash early last Friday between students at İstanbul University holding opposing views, which ended with police detaining 50 students, Tanrıkulu asked Ala whether the police were protecting the members of one of the groups and targeting the others because they are against the government.

The Turkish media reported that the fight broke out at the university's Beyazıt campus as two groups of students attacked each other with sticks and stones. Police had to intervene and detained 50 students involved in the clash. Security measures have been tightened around the campus. The reason for the scuffle was not immediately apparent.

Tanrıkulu asked how many of the students with views opposing the government were taken into custody and if any of them had experienced torture.

“What is the number of students who have been thrown out of universities in the last two years on political grounds?” wrote Tanrıkulu, adding, “What is the distribution of these students according to university and course?”