Renowned Turkish singer and actress Zuhal Olcay was sentenced in March 2018 to 10 months in prison for “insulting” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during a concert she gave in Istanbul in 2016.

A lawsuit was filed against Olcay in December 2017 in an Istanbul Court. The indictment, prepared by the Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office, alleges that a concert attendee approached the police about an “insulting hand gesture” made by Olcay during the performance. The indictment also claims that Olcay changed the lyrics of her song “Boş Vermişim Dünyayı” (I Let Go of the World) to further insult the president.

State prosecutors sought 4 years and 8 months in prison for Olcay, the maximum sentence allowed by Turkish law for “insulting the president”. At her trial in March 2018, footage of the concert was used as evidence, and proved that Olcay had indeed sung “Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, it’s all empty, it’s all a lie. Life will end one day and you’ll say ‘I had a dream.’”

Olcay testified that she had changed the lyric simply because it fit the rhyme scheme, and that she “did not having any ulterior or inciting motive.” She also stated that she had made the hand gesture at a fan in the audience, and had not directed it at Erdoğan.

Olcay is one of hundreds of artists accused of “insulting the president” who have faced legal action and imprisonment by the Erdoğan regime in the nearly two years since a failed coup nearly destabilized his government.

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