Turkish teen released over PM slur

Ankara, Turkey

A secondary school student who was jailed for allegedly insulting Turkey’s president was released from custody yesterday after his arrest caused uproar.

The 16-year-old was arrested on Wednesday, a day after he took part in a small left-wing student rally commemorating the death of a pro-secular army officer slain by Islamists 84 years ago.

The boy, who can only be identified by his initials MEA to protect his identity as a minor, made a speech during the rally in which he said the students didn’t regard Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the president, but as the “thieving owner of the illegal palace”, according to court papers .

His words referred to a vast government corruption scandal that has implicated members of Erdogan’s family, as well as a controversial 1,150-room palace in the capital, Ankara, which Erdogan inaugurated in October.

The arrest of the boy at Meram Technical and Vocational high school in Konya, central Turkey, sparked an outcry, with opposition parties denouncing it as the latest example of the government’s descent towards authoritarianism and its crackdown on dissent. Dozens of lawyers volunteered to defend the teen and petitioned for his release.

The boy walked through the gates of a detention centre in Konya after a court there agreed to free him from police custody yesterday. It is a crime in Turkey to insult the president and the boy could face up to four years in prison if he is charged and convicted.