Famous Turkish actor faces prison for ‘insulting’ Erdogan

ISTANBUL: Mujdat Gezen’s half-century career as an acclaimed Turkish writer and actor has included awards, a stint as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador and a taste of prison after a 1980 putsch.
Now 77 years old, the comedian and poet with an ironic spirit with an easy smile and a sore back is at risk of returning to prison for having insulted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
He risks becoming the latest victim in the battle that has lasted for years between the Turkish leader and what he disdainfully calls “so-called artists”.
“I’m even banned from appearing in crosswords,” Gezen joked.
Gezen landed in court with fellow comedian Metin Akpinar, 79, following comments the couple made on a TV show they starred on opposition Halk TV in 2018.
On the show, Gezen told Erdogan to “know your place”.
“Look at Recep Tayyip Erdogan, you cannot test our patriotism. Know your place,” Gezen said on air.
His interlocutor Akpinar went further saying that “if we do not become a (democracy) … the leader could end up being hanged by the legs or poisoned in the cellar”.
These are risky comments to make in a country still reeling from the massive crackdown Erdogan unleashed after surviving a failed coup in 2016.
Their trial comes as Erdogan is rocked by a flurry of student protests that hint at Turks’ impatience with his reign as prime minister and president since 2003.
Prosecutors want to put the two veteran celebrities behind bars for up to four years and eight months. The verdict is expected Monday.
Thousands of Turks, from a former Miss Turkey to schoolchildren, have been prosecuted for insulting Erdogan on social media and on television.
Bristling with jokes and comments, Erdogan warned in 2018 that his detractors “would pay the price.”
“The next day,” Gezen told AFP in a telephone interview, “the police arrived and I was summoned to give a statement to prosecutors.”
The knock on the door reminded Gezen of how he ended up being taken to court after spending 20 days in prison when a military junta overthrew Turkey’s civilian government at the height of the Cold War in 1980.
Gezen’s book on Nazim Hikmet – perhaps Turkey’s most famous poet of the 20th century, who happened to be a Communist who died in exile in Moscow in 1963 – was pulled from the shelves after this coup.
“I was shackled as I was taken from prison to court with a gang of 50 criminals, including murderers and smugglers,” he recalls.
He was released by the court in 1980 and could still be acquitted on Monday.
Still, Gezen is uncomfortable with the similarities and with Turkey’s trajectory under Erdogan.
“There are a record number of journalists in prison – we have never seen this in the history of the republic. This is what overwhelms me,” he said.
Author of more than 50 books and founder of his own art center in Istanbul, Gezen says he “criticized or parodied politicians” for decades without going to jail.
His popularity and determination earned him a role in 2007 as Goodwill Ambassador for the UNICEF Children’s Relief Fund.
But he fears that the tradition of Turkey’s outspoken artists – “art is oppositional in nature,” he noted – will wither under Erdogan.
“We now have self-censorship. But what is even more painful for me is that (some artists) prefer to be apolitical,” he said.
“The president said how he expects artists to behave. But it can’t be the president of a country who decides these things. It is the artists who have to decide.”
Out of caution, Gezen’s lawyers now read his books before publication to avoid legal problems.
“It’s risky in Turkey,” he observed.
Many of the once thriving opposition media have been shut down or taken over by government allies, leaving independent voices with even fewer options.
But he remains stubbornly optimistic, calling democracy in Turkey something tangible but just out of reach, like the shore for a stranded boat.
“And then someone on the mast will cry: Land ahoy!”