Dilruba Kayserilioğlu, who was arrested on August 12th over comments made in a street interview criticizing Turkey’s 8-day ban on Instagram, now faces new charges of ‘insulting the president’, according to a new indictment released by the İzmir Attorney General’s office.
Kayserilioğlu spent 18 days in jail in August on charges of ‘inciting the public to resentment and hatred’ before her release on August 29th.
In comments made in a street interview on the ‘Tüylü Mikrofon’ YouTube program, Kayserilioğlu accused President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of “using the country like his father’s barn” following Turkey’s transition from a parliamentary to presidential system in 2018.
The street interview had asked participants their thoughts on Turkey’s Instagram ban at the beginning of August. Access to the platform had been banned for eight days at the beginning of the month due to a controversy between Turkish government officials and Instagram’s parent company Meta regarding the censorship of content related to the recent death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniye in Tehran.
The new indictment released Wednesday accuses Kayserilioğlu of insulting President Erdoğan in her comments. Insulting the president is punishable in Turkey according to Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code, and indictments on the matter have surged since 2014, leading to criticism from members of the Turkish opposition and outside human rights observers.
Since her detention, Dilruba Kayserilioğlu has seen the support of Turkey’s opposition. On August 29th, her last day of imprisonment, Republican People’s Party (CHP) chairman Özgür Özel visited Kayserilioğlu in prison. The following day, she joined the opposition leader at the opening of a trade fair in İzmir in which Özel made a speech emphasizing his commitment to free speech in Turkey.
