17 April 2024
The trial of Zehra Ömeroğlu was postponed for the umpteenth time at the hearing on 16 April 2024, marked by the absence of the judge in charge of the case.
Press release, 11 April 2024 – A few days before her criminal trial on obscenity charges, scheduled for 16 April in Istanbul, Cartooning for Peace, Cartoonists’ Rights, the Freedom Cartoonist Foundation and Freemuse reiterate their support for cartoonist Zehra Ömeroğlu of Türkiye, over whom the prospect of criminalisation hangs like a veritable lead blanket.
Zehra Ömeroğlu faces a sentence ranging from 6 months to 3 years’ imprisonment, as well as the payment of a fine, for a cartoon on the symptoms of Covid-19 published on 25 November 2020 in the Turkish humor magazine Leman.
Although Türkiye is bound to protect freedom of expression, guaranteed by Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and by its own Constitution, which also guarantees freedom of the press and the free dissemination of art, the country is ranked 165/180 in the Reporters without borders World Press Freedom Index 2023.
Determined to defend Zehra Ömeroğlu, our organizations express their full solidarity with her in the face of the trial, the outcome of which will be a true marker of the scale of the attacks on freedom of expression, and of the space allocated to women’s freedom of expression and feminist artistic production in Türkiye.
