Tag: Recep Erdogan

Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Society

SpongeBob SquarePants Posed Existential Threat To Turkey

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor.

A nefarious, existential threat was recently vanquished by the post-coup censorship offices of Turkish President Erdoğan. No, it was not the PKK, nor ISIS, nor Fethullah Gülen. It was SpongeBob SquarePants and Smurfette, broadcast on a Kurdish Language children’s television network.

The media crackdown in the aftermath of the failed coup in Turkey has led to closures of dozens of news services and thousands of firings among journalists. Cartoon networks can now become labeled as seditious.

Apparently, SpongeBob’s cohort Squidward Tentacles nefariously slithered into the fabric of the state’s security apparatus and cunningly attempted to dismantle it from within. His ink: it sows discord by fueling the printing presses of subversives.
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Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Media, Military, Politics, Society, Supreme Court

Court Sentences Man To 13 Years For Removing Turkish Flag

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Flag of TurkeyIn an injustice to both the liberty of a Kurdish man and free speech in general a court in Turkey handed down thirteen year sentence to a defendant accused of removing a Turkish flag at a military base near Diyarbakir, Turkey. The disproportionate sentence followed an outraged Recep Erdogan who declared after the act, “[w]e don’t care if he is a child. Even if a child dares to take down our sacred flag both him and those who send him there will pay a price.”

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