A Turkish journalist was thrown in jail after officials accused her of making an “insulting” comment against the country’s president in a live TV interview last week.
Sedef Kabas, the journalist, is awaiting trial on a charge of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Kabas was arrested Saturday after a judge determined she was a flight risk, a move criticized by Kabas’s lawyer as being unwarranted.
“There is no suspicion of her leaving the country, nor is there any suspicion of obfuscation of the evidence, nor is there any question of her not going to authorities when she is summoned,” Ugur Poyraz, Kabas’s lawyer, said on Turkey’s Halk TV channel, according to the Washington Post.
The alleged insult came in the form of a Turkish proverb, and Kabas did not refer to Erdogan by name.
“A crowned head gets wiser, but we see that it is not true,” Kabas said on the opposition television channel Tele1 last Friday, according to CNN. “When a cattle enters a palace, he will not be a king, but that palace becomes a barn.”
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In a court statement, Kabas denied intending to insult the president, according to the BBC. If convicted, the charge carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison.
Fahrettin Altun, the head of Turkey’s communications department, accused Kabas of insulting the president and condemned her comments.
“Politics, opposition, and journalism all have morals. Those who see this morality in this country too much are the poor people who have no self-respect. A so-called journalist is blatantly insulting our President on a television channel that has no goal other than spreading hatred!!” Altun said in a tweet.
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Kabas, who has a career in journalism spanning over three decades, also shared the proverb on social media following her interview.
Since becoming the president of Turkey in 2014, 35,500 cases have been filed for insulting Erdogan under the insult law. Nearly 13,000 people have been convicted, according to the Associated Press.
