Former Miss Turkey convicted for insulting President Erdogan
Merve Buyuksarac, a former Miss Turkey has been convicted of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a social media post, The Independent writes.
According to the source, she was handed a 14-month suspended sentence meaning she will be sent to jail if she does anything in the period deemed to qualify as “reoffending”. The 27-year-old model, who won the Miss Turkey contest in 2006, was briefly detained for sharing a satirical poem on her Instagram account in 2014. Called 'The Master’s Poem’, it reportedly criticised Mr Erdogan and adapts the country’s national anthem in its verses.
Prosecutors deemed it to be insulting to Mr Erdogan, who has filed close to 2,000 defamation cases since becoming president in 2014, using a previously little-used law that bars insulting him.