The three-ring circus that is our current presidential race has blessed late-night hosts with a number of comedic fodder including Ted Cruz being called the Zodiac Killer, random people photographing themselves flipping the bird to Trump Tower and, thankfully, no risk of jail time for such insults. The same can’t be said for an ex beauty queen, who was convicted of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey after sharing a satirical post on Instagram.
Former Miss Turkey Merve Buyuksarac received a 14-month suspended sentence for reposting a poem back in 2014 from the weekly mag Uykusuz that criticized President Erdogan to the tune of the Turkish national anthem, the Daily Mailreported. The post didn’t mention the then-Prime Minister by name, but it did allude to a scandal involving his family at the time. That was enough for prosecutors, who argued the post went past "the limits of criticism" and acted as "an attack" on the president’s rights, according to the state-backed Anadolu Agency.
Buyuksarac may not have to spend any time in jail if she doesn't post anything considered offensive during the designated period. Since Erdogan’s rise to presidency in 2014, prosecutors have gone after nearly 2,000 people, including celebrities and kids in what many are calling harsh censorship and a push toward authoritarianism, perBBC News.
This censorship battle comes after an Instagram model in Iran was arrested for posting photos of herself with her hair not fully covered.
It’s days like this these where the possibility of Donald Trump becoming president doesn’t seem so bad.
On second thought, there's still this.
