The Turkish press has endured decade after decade of appalling censorship. Despite the cooing noises that prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the European Union have exchanged lately, Turkey hardly appears ready to embrace anything resembling western-style democracy. Case in point: A new law that's supposed to guarantee increased press freedom may in fact do the opposite. Local journalists have taken to the streets in protest, fearing that "arbitrary prosecutions" will soon "pack prisons" with reporters, editors, and columnists.
And cartoonists, of course. After all, the prime minister's professed commitment to free speech crumbled rather spectacularly when, last year, he spotted a cartoon of himself as a kitten entangled in a ball of yarn. Such terrible lèse majesté cannot be tolerated, natch, and so Mr. Erdogan sued the artist, Musa Kart, who was fined 4,000 dollars by a Turkish magistrate earlier this month.
To be fair, not all Turkish judges believe it is their job to be Mr. Erdogan's hand puppet. A similar suit the prime minister brought against a publication that reprinted the cartoon was dismissed. The judge in that case, Mithat Ali Kabaali, ruled admirably that
"People who are under the public light are forced to endure criticism in the same way that they endure applause."
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