Status: 10/21/2022 12:40 p.m
The Turkish singer Gülsen is on trial for a lewd joke on stage: she faces three years in prison for incitement to hatred. Not only her fans see it as an attack on freedom of speech.
“He went to an Imam Hatip school, that’s where his perversion comes from,” said pop singer Gülsen at the end of April about a member of her band at a concert in Istanbul. Imam Hatip is the name of Turkish state schools with a Muslim focus. Many in the audience find Gülsen’s remark funny.
The whole thing is almost forgotten when, around four months later, a video of the scene is suddenly shared and clicked on the Internet many times. The public prosecutor’s office takes action and accuses Gülsen of hate speech. She ends up in prison – under the eyes of fans who want to give her courage.
A few days later, Gülsen was released and placed under house arrest. The well-known lawyer Rezan Epözdemir suspects that pressure from parts of society contributed to this. The house arrest has since been lifted, but the allegations continue to apply. Therefore, she has to report to a police station every week. You face up to three years in prison.
Erdogan also refers to Gülsen
Other artists are horrified at their case – like the pop singer Murat Boz: “It’s the worst thing that can happen to us artists, and the fact that it’s happening in my country makes me even sadder,” he says. “None of us deserved that.”
However, a statement by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggests how large the scale of Gülsen’s alleged crime is for those in power. He also attended an Imam Hatip school.
A few days after Gülsen’s arrest, he said, without naming her: “We will not allow the pillars of our nation to collapse – despite those who do not know history and morals and do not recognize sanctity.”
“Speech and criticism under government control”
For the political scientist and columnist for the Internet channel Serbest, Ali Bayramoglu, the comment from the very top fits the picture: The government wants to dominate public opinion, he says. Critics are quickly accused of hate speech – or of insulting the president.
“Almost 7,000 investigations into insulting the president have already been initiated. 1,000 people have been convicted,” he reports. “In other words, in Turkey, speech and criticism are under government control.”
The opposition is also taking the Gülsen case as an opportunity to rail against the government. The leader of the so-called Good Party, Meral Aksener, writes on Instagram that sooner or later everyone has to expect to be arrested under this government. Erdogan must therefore lose the election next year: “The judiciary does not work – there is no rule of law. I hope we will build it up together after the elections.”
A new law raises concerns
Until then, there could be a number of other charges similar to those against Gülsen – based on the recently passed so-called disinformation law. Oppositionists call it the censorship law.
Incidentally, Gülsen apologized for her statement even before the law was passed. It was just a joke. Whether the court believes her is an open question. After all, she convinced the former MP of the nationalist MHP, Nazif Okumus: “It can only be a joke – maybe a bad one, but anyone with a bit of common sense can see it, regardless of their political preferences.”