Thou shalt not insult Erdogan: how Miss Turkey fell foul of her country's leader

It stands to reason that if a German comedian could go down for dissing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then a former Miss Turkey doesn't stand a chance.

We've seen this syndrome before – think Saddam Hussein in Iraq or Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, both of whom were seen off by their own people amid scenes of ritualised brutality.

Long before their departures, these two were sufficiently deluded to believe they could order their people to love them, but this state of mind could be policed only in the negative: "Thou shalt not insult me."

Saddam and Gaddafi were ostracised, but Erdogan has proved himself a class act, positioned right at the intersection of bonkers and megalomania, yet still indulged as a leader on the world's stage.

It was one thing for us all to snigger behind our hands this week when Merve Buyuksarac – Miss Turkey in 2006 – landed in the dock, charged with insulting a public official.

Former Miss Turkey Merve Buyuksarac speaks to The Associated Press in Istanbul, Turkey, last year.Credit: AP

Needless to say that in Erdogan's Turkey, there is just one public official who might be so easily offended. The 27-year-old Buyuksarac's crime was to share a satirical text titled "The Master's Poem" with her combined Twitter and Instagram following of 45,000.

A former model who these days is an industrial designer, Buyuksarac had lifted the poem from Uykusuz, a Turkish satirical magazine which has made a mission of mocking the Turkish establishment – and especially Erdogan:

The cover of Uykusuz, a Turkish satirical magazine, with the revised poem mocking Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan that got Miss Turkey into trouble.

Thinking the poem (above) was funny, Buyuksarac shared it. As her lawyer Emre Telci explained: "My client has been convicted for words that do not belong to her."

Buyuksarac was luckier than a good many of hundreds of other Turks facing similar charges in the two years since Erdogan became president – on being found guilty she was sentenced to 14 months in prison, but the sentence was suspended on a proviso that she not reoffend in the next five years.

In a country in which journalists are thrown in the slammer and publishers are made to forfeit their newspapers, some of which are then sold to Erdogan's cronies, Buyuksarac's plight was no great shakes, especially given Erdogan's stunning recent success in enlisting German Chancellor Angela Merkel as an offshore agent for his absurd cult of self.

Supporters of the Koza-Ipek media group demonstrate for press freedom in Istanbul, Turkey, in October.Credit: Bloomberg

Merkel walked into a wall of criticism in April, when she went along with a request from Erdogan that an obscure German law be activated to prosecute comedian Jan Bohmermann, who read out an offensive poem about Erdogan on German TV.

Merkel voiced her "grave concern" about the prosecution of journalists in Turkey, before throwing the German comedian under the bus, saying in a statement: "In a constitutional democracy, weighing up personal rights against freedom of the press and freedom of expression is not a matter for governments, but for public prosecutors and courts."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a joint press conference on April 15.Credit: AP

The law that the Turkish leader demanded be invoked outlaws insults against foreign states, but it cannot be triggered without an express authorisation from the government.

Ordinarily, Merkel might have told Erdogan to bugger off, but he had her and all of Europe over a barrel – they desperately need his cooperation to check the flow of migrants to the continent from Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, a state of affairs that Merkel codified as a need to protect Berlin's close diplomatic ties with Ankara.

And apart from Merkel's action against the comedian, Erdogan also extracted a trophy concession – visa-free travel to Europe for Turks.

Such is the authoritarian streak in Erdogan these days that critics are reluctant to speak out and those who do are often locked up. But before he moved into his new $US615 million, 1150-room presidential palace in 2014, a chorus of MPs and doctors questioned his psychological stability.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Dr Aytun Ciray, a senior opposition MP, told Aydinlik newspaper: "As a doctor, I do not think Erdogan is in his right mind – a psychiatrist had better study him."

Another opposition MP, Dr Haluk Koc, said: "I told you 10 years ago that Erdogan was sick. He thinks that he owns the state – he wants to be president, prime minister, sheikh al-Islam (chief religious official) and (ruling party) AKP president, all at the same time. He's in a dreadful psychological state."

As a wave of corruption allegations against Erdogan threatened his grip on power and the well-being of his cronies in 2014, he was ruthless in response – hundreds of police investigators were banished; investigations were stacked with loyalists and Erdogan thought he could fix things by the simple expedient of banning YouTube and Twitter.

These days it doesn't matter how frivolous the charge might be when it comes to insulting public figures – in April, a man was arrested and charged with insulting Erdogan by asking a policeman for directions to the zoo.

Reading some of the quotes from Erdogan's speeches, and you begin to sympathise with the Turkish people:

• "you cannot bring women and men into an equal position, this is against nature"
• "Muslims discovered America in 1178, not Christopher Columbus"
• "we'll eradicate Twitter"
• "whoever drinks alcohol is an alcoholic"

And this gem that could come only from the heartless as he spoke to the families of more than 300 victims of a mine accident in 2014: "These types of incidents are ordinary things."

If all that is just light-hearted banter by the president, his pronouncements as Turkey weathers and mismanages the fallout from the war against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria comes from a different realm.

In March, Erdogan introduced an audience in Ankara to the concept of an "unarmed terrorist": "The fact that there is no difference between a terrorist with a gun and a bomb in his hand and those who use their work and pen to support terror. The fact that an individual could be an [MP], an academic, an author, a journalist or the director of an NGO does not change the fact that that person is a terrorist."

The trouble in Turkey these days is that anyone who dares to criticise the government runs the risk of being branded an "unarmed terrorist".