Merve Büyüksaraç (born 13 June 1988) is a model, TV personality and beauty pageant titleholder who won the Miss Turkey 2006. She is also an industrial designer by profession, a fine-arts artist and an entrepreneur. In 2016, Büyüksaraç has been put in trial in Turkey on the charge of insulting the president

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician who is the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as the 25th prime minister of Turkey, prime minister from 2003 to 2014 as part of the Jus ...

Biography

Büyüksaraç was crowned Miss Turkey in 2006 and works as a model. Büyüksaraç allegedly posted a satirical poem on

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

in 2014 which was then shared thousands of times on social media, and prosecutors found the poem to be insulting. The trial in the city of

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

began in May 2016 and was decided at the end of the month. Her sentence was suspended on condition that she does not "reoffend" within the next five years. Her lawyers are appealing the verdict. Groups that support

free speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recognise ...

have criticized the decision. According to a report in the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, 2000 people have been prosecuted for insulting Erdogan since 2014, and the list of persons charged includes children as well as celebrities. Büyüksarac reposted "The Master's Poem" in 2014 not for the purpose of insulting the president, she said, but because "it was funny". In June 2016, it was reported that she was delivered with a verdict of a suspended sentence of fourteen months imprisonment.

References

Turkish female models Miss Turkey winners Free speech activists Turkish prisoners and detainees Living people Place of birth missing (living people) 1988 births {{Turkey-bio-stub