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| Europe |
| UK artist freed after 'humiliating' Turkish PM |
| 2008-09-27 |
| The headline makes it sound like he was freed because he "humiliated" Erdogan, not that he was arrested because he did. A Turkish court on Thursday acquitted a British artist who risked up to two years in jail for his collage depicting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a dog, a report said. The court ruled that the work by Michael Dickinson was a "political warning and criticism delivered through art... even though it had insulting and humiliating elements," the Anatolia news agency said. I believe the original bit of "art" is on display at the website or linked to it. It's another sophomoric "political statement" that states that its designer is... ummm... sophomoric. Dickinson, a long-time resident of Istanbul, displayed the collage -- showing Erdogan as a dog receiving a prize in a pet show from U.S. President George W. Bush -- at a 2006 exhibition here dedicated to peace. As a matter of principle I'm against censorship. But deep down, I don't disagree with him being jugged -- for drooly bad taste. Turkey is under pressure to improve freedom of expression as it negotiates membership of the European Union, but a series of legal moves against intellectuals in recent years have raised concerns over Ankara's commitment to improve democratic standards. It actually doesn't take much intellect to design something that stoopid. But the point has to be that in a free society you're allowed to be just as stoopid as you like as long as it doesn't involve murder, rape, robbery, battery or kidnapping. Once you start down the slippery slope of "infliction of emotional distress" nobody has any rights. Your own rights end where someone else's ephemerae begin. Erdogan himself has come under intense criticism after his lawyers pursued court cases against journalists for allegedly insulting him. The courts have rejected cases against two cartoonists and a weekly humor magazine for depicting Erdogan as various animals. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 how about glass-stick-on Yippy gifts? are they verboten as well? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-09-27 21:09 |
| #3 It seems that political cartoons are verboten in Turkey. The only thing worse is blaspheming Mohammed. Then there is much rioting, seething, boom-booms, and tooth gnashing. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2008-09-27 20:48 |
| #2 Agreed, Aonymoose. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-09-27 13:58 |
| #1 I think the best resolution would be to declare political "art" to be political commentary, not art. As such, the "artist" comes under the same rules as a journalist. This doesn't mean that he gets any more punishment, in fact he might even get more legal protection. But what it *does* mean is that the court has him declared as "not an artist, just a political hack". And that may be a worse punishment, because it strips him of any pretense that art was involved, that he is no more an artist than a KOS kiddy, ranting against Bush. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-09-27 13:49 |