Books, Free Speech, Movies

Court Investigates Whether Being Compared To Gollum Is Insulting

Somewhere some graduate thesis on The Character And Motivations Of Gollum Née Sméagol is about to become actually useful.

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Okay, so there a few things you need to know before you can truly appreciate the absurdity of this story. First of all, it takes place in Turkey, where apparently it is a crime to insult the president. Let that fact blow your mind just a little bit while the BBC explains the legal backdrop of the current case:

Insulting the president is a crime in Turkey, punishable by prison.

Turkey’s record on freedom of speech and treatment of journalists has come in for criticism in recent years, with Mr [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s administration seen as being increasingly intolerant of criticism.

Mr Erdogan’s legal team has often backed cases brought by lawyers and private individuals against people who have allegedly insulted him.

Maybe I’m just being too American, what with our First Amendment and whatnot, but… understatement much? Can you even imagine what this would look like in the U.S.? Sure there’d be tons of racists and otherwise awful people that would be in trouble, but what I really want to know is would the picture of President Obama in a man bun be protected speech?

Anyway, back to the case at hand. In Turkey, Bilgin Ciftci is on trial for allegedly insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. His crime? Posting a meme that compared the leader to Gollum of Lord of the Rings fame. And if he’s convicted he could spend two years in jail.

The chief judge in the case apparently hasn’t had his nerd card punched, and admitted in court he hasn’t seen all of the LOTR movies. As a result he couldn’t determine whether the comparison was insulting without additional input. He decided to appoint a panel of experts, consisting of two academics, two behavioral scientists or psychologists, and an expert on TV and movies, to determine whether the comparison was insulting.

All of which means that somewhere some graduate thesis on The Character And Motivations Of Gollum Née Sméagol is about to become actually useful.

Turkish court ‘orders Gollum study’ in Erdogan case [BBC]

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