We’ve all seen the ridiculous stories of people being arrested and charged with a crime for insulting Turkish President Erdogan. We’ve posted many of them here.
But this new one takes the cake:
JPOST – Turkish man could face jail for sharing images which compare President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the character Gollum from The Lord of the Rings films.
According to Turkish Daily Today’s Zaman, the court has now ordered an expert examination of the Lord of the Rings character in order to deem if the comparison is an insult.
Dr. Bilgin Ciftci, a physician, lost his job at Turkey’s Public Health Institution in October after sharing a series of photos showing the grotesque Gollum and Erdogan side by side in a number of similar poses.
Ciftci was then charged with insulting the president and faces up to two years in prison.
The doctor not only loses his job, but is facing possible jail time for his side by side photos of Erdogan and Gollum.
Here’s the photos in question:
I remember when they did a similar thing to George W. Bush and a monkey’s face not long after he was elected president for the first time. Can you imagine someone facing prison time for that?
If you think this is bad though, just wait until he becomes sultan of Turkey and the caliph of the new Ottoman empire. People will probably be arrested for not bowing down to him or something.