June’s celebrations were premature; Turkish prosecutors are determined to pursue cartoonist Zehra Ömeroğlu and overturn her acquittal.
As confirmed in conversation during today’s panel on the fate of satire in Türkiye convened by Media Freedom Rapid Response, Zehra Ömeroğlu was informed July 24th of the state prosecutor’s intent to file a petition with the court of appeal in Istanbul and thereby seek to overturn the June 26th ruling that saw the cartoonist acquitted of criminal charges of “obscenity”.
Said prosecution arose from a cartoon published in LeMan humor magazine in 2020. Following more than four years of judicial harassment, Ms Ömeroğlu was chosen to receive our Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award. In the context of the recent arrests and criminal charges leveled at various staffers from LeMan, this latest is a worrying, but perhaps not surprising development.
“After a slow and lengthy process of deliberation and the receipt of expert opinions from both sides of the argument, a judge came to the wholly correct decision last month that Zehra’s cartoon did not represent a criminally obscene, nor dangerously irresponsible piece of commentary. The local censors and prosecutors’ dogged determination to punish her is troubling; we remain convinced their case is based upon misogyny. While saddened that her troubles are not yet over, we’ll continue to stand in solidarity with our Courage in Cartooning Awardee for as long as it takes.”
Terry Anderson – Executive Director
