Human Rights Watch has renewed its call for Turkey to repeal Article 299 of the penal code, which criminalizes “insulting the president,” citing recent prosecutions as proof that the law is incompatible with democratic norms and international free speech standards.
The group said the offense is “obsolete and unjustified” and has been systematically used by authorities to silence dissent and punish criticism of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The statement follows the release of Esila Ayık, a university student who spent 40 days in jail for holding a banner calling Erdoğan a dictator during a protest against the March arrest of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu.
Ayık, who suffers from chronic kidney and heart conditions, still faces up to four years in prison under Article 299 despite international concern over her health and the nature of the charge.
Human Rights Watch also highlighted the case of Swedish journalist Joakim Medin, who received an 11-month suspended sentence on April 30 after his newspaper published a photo of an Erdoğan effigy at a 2023 protest in Stockholm.
Medin was detained in Turkey and released on May 16, after which he returned to Sweden.
Lawyer Burak Saldıroğlu was also arrested this month for a social media post questioning whether Erdoğan was “in his right mind,” in what HRW described as another example of protected speech being treated as criminal.
The group said such detentions and prosecutions violate the European Convention on Human Rights and defy multiple rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which found that Article 299 violates the right to freedom of expression.
In 2021, the ECtHR ruled that the law should be amended or repealed, stating that giving special protection to the president stifles public debate and chills dissent.
Despite that ruling, Turkish courts continue to enforce Article 299, often against journalists, activists, lawyers, students and ordinary citizens over social media comments, protest slogans and media coverage.
In 2021 alone more than 11,000 people in Turkey were prosecuted under Article 299, according to official Ministry of Justice data cited by Human Rights Watch.
The Turkish government has not released updated figures since then, but observers estimate that tens of thousands more have been investigated or charged.
Human Rights Watch said these prosecutions demonstrate that Turkey is out of step with global legal trends, noting that most democracies have repealed or stopped using similar laws.
The organization urged Ankara to stop using the offense, publish the latest statistics and immediately abolish the crime of insulting the president.