{"id":61351,"date":"2014-10-31T13:29:16","date_gmt":"2014-10-31T13:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=61351"},"modified":"2017-03-23T17:16:40","modified_gmt":"2017-03-23T17:16:40","slug":"turkey-musa-kart-erdogan-cartoon-caricature-artistic-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=61351","title":{"rendered":"Life is getting harder for objective journalists in Turkey, says cartoonist sued by Erdogan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Image:<\/a>

Cartoonists like Ben Jennings rallied around Musa Kart when he faced jail over a caricature of Turkey’s President Erdogan (Credit: Ben Jennings)<\/p><\/div>\n

Not long ago Turkish cartoonist Musa Kart faced the prospect of spending nine years behind bars, simply for doing his job.<\/p>\n

Taken to court by the Turkey’s President (and former Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself, Kart last week stood trial for insult and slander over a caricature published in newspaper Cumhuriyet in February<\/a>. Commenting on Erdogan\u2019s alleged hand in covering up a high-profile corruption scandal<\/a>, the cartoon depicted him as a hologram keeping a watchful eye over a robbery.<\/p>\n

While Kart was finally\u00a0acquitted last Thursday, his case was just starting to hit\u00a0international headlines — in no small part due to the swift reaction from colleagues around the world. In the online\u00a0#erdogancaricature<\/a>\u00a0campaign initiated by British cartoonist Martin Rowson, his fellow artists shared their own drawings of the president. With Erdogan reimagined as everything from a balloon, to a crying baby, to Frankenstein’s monster, the\u00a0show of solidarity soon went viral<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis campaign has showed me once again that I m a member of world cartoonists family. I am deeply moved and honoured by their support,\u201d Kart told Index in an email.<\/p>\n

Kart has been battling the criminal charges since February. His defiance was clear for all to see when he told the court on Thursday<\/a> that “I think that we are inside a cartoon right now”, referring to the fact that he was in the suspect’s seat while charges against people involved in the graft scandal had been dropped.<\/p>\n

He remains defiant today: \u201cErdogan would have either let an independent judiciary process to be cleared or repressed his opponents. He chose the second way,” he said. “It’s a well known fact that Erdogan is trying to repress and isolate the opponents by reshaping the laws and the judiciary and by countless prosecutions and libel suits against journalists.”<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time Kart has run into trouble with Erdogan. Back in 2005, he was fined 5,000 Turkish lira<\/a> for drawing the then-prime minister as a cat entangled in yarn. The cartoon represented the controversy that surrounded Turkey’s highest administrative court rejecting new legislation that Erdogan had campaigned on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have always believed that cartoon humour is a very unique and effective way to express our ideas and to reach people and it contributes to a better and more tolerant world,\u201d he explained when questioned on where he finds the strength to keep going.<\/p>\n

It remains unclear whether the story ends with this latest acquittal decision. While the charges against Kart were dropped earlier this year, an appeal from Erdogan saw the case reopened. “Erdogan’s lawyers will\u2026take the case to the upper court,” he said.<\/p>\n

Kart\u2019s experience is far from unique; free expression is a thorny issues in Erdogan\u2019s Turkey. In the past year alone, authorities temporarily banned Twitter and YouTube<\/a> and introduced\u00a0controversial internet legislation<\/a>. Meanwhile journalists, like the Economist\u2019s Amberin Zaman<\/a>, have been continuously targeted, as Index on Censorship\u2019s media freedom map shows<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kart is not optimistic about the future of press freedom in his country: \u201cUnfortunately, day by day, life is getting harder for independent and objective journalists in Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally posted on 31 October at indexoncensorship.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Musa Kart faced nine year behind bars over a caricature of the Turkish president <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":259,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4059,581,55],"tags":[3669,6790,206,6775,255,7355],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61351"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61351"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87185,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61351\/revisions\/87185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}