https://ahvalnews.com/-A Turkish court sentenced female journalist Sedef Kabaş to two years and four months in jail on charges of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The court in Istanbul released Kabaş, 52, from pre-trial detention pending a legal appeal, local media including the Diken news website reported.
The court made the decision even after a ruling late last year by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that laws governing freedom of expression in Turkey should be amended to prevent such prosecutions.
Kabaş was detained in late January after she cited a proverb that prosecutors deemed had insulted Erdoğan. She made the comments on an opposition television channel and on her Twitter account.
“When the ox comes to the palace, he does not become a king. But the palace becomes a barn,” she said. The Tweet on Jan. 21 remains published.
Turkey is one of leading jailers of journalists globally. Mainstream media is controlled by businessmen close to Erdoğan after a series of takeovers since his governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) won power in 2002.
Court prosecutions of Turks on charges of insulting Erdoğan have increased markedly over the past five years. In 2018, Erdoğan acquired vast new presidential powers, after which Turkey’s human rights record worsened.
The ECHR said in October that legislation rendering insults of the president a crime should be changed, citing a series of detentions of suspects for expressing their opinion.
Turkey has started more than 160,000 investigations of suspected insults of Erdoğan since 2014, the year he first became president. Almost 13,000 people have been convicted. More than 31,000 investigations began in 2020.