Newly-Elected President Sues LGBTI Activist
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan filed against LGBTI activist Levent Pişkin for non-pecuniary damages of 50,000 liras for his tweet “queer”.
Pişkin talked to bianet: “If I’m fined, I’m planning to pay my fine by collecting 1 lira from sex workers and LGBTIs .”
At the beginning of the year Erdoğan had filed a lawsuit against him for the same reason and Pişkin was fined of 1,500 liras in exchange for prison of 2 months 15 days.
“I guess my sentence is not enough for him because he still deals with me, but we will continue to struggle in a legal way,” he said. Pişkin intends to apply for Constitutional Court on the account that his freedom of expression was violated through the case filed against him.
Defendant makes black propaganda
Following the Erdoğan’s statement “If being Alevi means to love Prophet Ali, then I am a perfect Alevi”, LGBTI activist Levent Pişkin had tweeted “I’m expecting from Erdoğan to say ‘I am a perfect queer, you cannot teach me how to be a queer.’ Kisses. #LGBTinconstitution”.
In the trial, Pişkin defended himself claiming that “queer” is not an insult, rather a kind of sexual orientation.
“This court is the same court which ruled on 17 December Corruption Probe. We don’t have prejudices. We are prepared for every thing,” the adjudicator said in the first hearing. However, then adjudicator was changed and in the second hearing Pişkin was fined.
After that, Erdoğan filed against Pişkin for non-pecuniary damages.
The petition states:
“Although in a democratic society, individuals with political identities are expected to be more tolerant of rude, strict, and offending criticism in contrast to others, a legal action can be conducted, if criticism has a derogatory expression and there is no intellectual relation between the criticized issue and the expression of that criticism. Defendant makes black propaganda against PM by insulting him. Defendant tries to validate every action he made in order to justify himself and distorts the situation through press releases.”
Pişkin: Erdoğan tries to make us concede, but we won’t
Levent Pişkin commented the expression of “black propaganda” in the petition for bianet:
“Erdoğan tries to make activists, his opponents, and those who criticize him concede. We need to show that we won’t.
“It is not surprising that he interpreted my press release as black propaganda because he is the person who banned to issue press release on İstiklal Street and Taksim Square.
“Is law functioning according to the values? How can a group be accused of immorality or violating moral values, even if defendants are to be judged according to moral values?” (ÇT/MUY/BM)
* Click here to read the article in Turkish.