High-profile Erdogan critic, Turkish fashion designer Barbaros Sansal has been targeted once again by Turkey’s President, as Turkish authorities have filed another case against him for insulting the country’s leader.
Two years ago, he was sentenced to six months in prison for publicly insulting the Turkish nation, prosecutors are now demanding that Sansal be handed a five-year jail term for insulting Erdogan through a thread of tweets the designer posted in March 2018.
According to the charge sheet, the Turkish designer retweeted a series of tweets against the Turkish president.
He retweeted another user’s tweet who said that "a columnist of pro-government Star (newspaper) says that FETO (Gulenists) may be planning to assassinate Erdogan by infecting him with AIDS".
Sansal reposted the tweet along with an article on the disease, under the title “Transmittable by blood”.
He told BBC’s Turkish Service that he finds it ridiculous that the Justice Ministry has allowed such a case to be brought before a court of law.
This is not the first time the outspoken fashion designer has been targeted by the Erdogan administration.
Two years ago, Sansal was given a suspended six-month prison sentence over comments he had made that were perceived to have insulted the nation.
He was arrested in January 2017 in the north of Cyprus and deported to Turkey after posting a video on social media on New Year’s Eve criticising certain religious circles in Turkey and the Turkish government.
He was sentenced to six months and 20 days in prison, after being found guilty of public contempt of the Turkish nation and the Republic of Turkey. His sentence was eventually suspended.
In his 2017 New Year video he lambasted Erdogan and his ruling AKP policies which had led to journalists being arrested in Turkey, corruption within the ruling AKP, cases of abused children and murdered women.
He criticised the “bigoted” circles in Turkey which had spread “hate speech” against New Year celebrations.
“You continue to celebrate in so much dirt, shame and misery. Drawn in your own shit Turkey,” said Sansal in his video.
The outspoken critic of Erdogan often visits both the Turkish occupied north of Cyprus and the government-controlled areas. (source CNA)
