An Istanbul court has lifted the requirement for cartoonist Doğan Pehlevan to sign in weekly with authorities while keeping in place a ban on leaving the country, in a case where he is charged with insulting the president.
MLSA - The third hearing in the case against Pehlevan, a cartoonist for Turkish satirical magazine LeMan, was held at the Istanbul 36th Criminal Court of First Instance, a lower-level criminal court in Turkey’s judicial system. The hearing began about an hour later than scheduled.
Pehlevan attended the hearing with his lawyers. A lawyer representing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was also present in court.
In his final defense statement, Pehlevan requested acquittal. His lawyers likewise asked the court to lift judicial control measures and to issue a verdict of acquittal.
The prosecutor at the hearing said that the response received from the Cybercrime Department, which had been asked to examine an X account allegedly belonging to Pehlevan, was incomplete and requested that a new official letter be sent.
The court ruled to remove the obligation for Pehlevan to provide a signature at regular intervals, while deciding to continue the ban on international travel. It also ordered that a new letter be sent to the Cybercrime Department. The hearing was adjourned until July 14 at 10:30 a.m.
About the case
At the first hearing of the “insulting the president” case, Pehlevan had been released under judicial control measures requiring him to sign in once a week and prohibiting him from leaving the country.
The charges are based on posts made from a social media account alleged to belong to Pehlevan. He has denied ownership of the account, saying, “I do not have a Twitter account, and I never have. The posts in question are not in my style.”
Pehlevan’s lawyer, Ali Deniz Ceylan, said that there is no finding in police records indicating that the account belongs to Pehlevan. The lawyers added that this file is separate from a previous “cartoon” case in which Pehlevan was tried and that their client cannot be linked to the alleged offense.
Pehlevan has also been tried in another case on charges of “inciting hatred and hostility among the public or degrading” in connection with a cartoon published in the June 26 issue of LeMan magazine. He was released in that case, and the trial is ongoing.
