A 14-year-old from Şemdinli district of Hakkari has been taken into custody for “insulting the president”. The teenager S.T. is accused of insulting Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on digital networks. The investigation is pending before the Criminal Division of the Isparta District Court in southwestern Turkey.

As reported by the Mezopotamya news agency (MA), the court has ordered a bone age determination in the case of the teenager. The method is used to determine biological physical maturity. This procedure is not uncommon among Turkish law enforcement agencies and is usually applied to minors with a Kurdish background.

According to the MA report, S.T. was taken to a hospital in Hakkari on Friday morning for the bone age determination. It was initially unclear whether the boy would be released after the procedure. It is also not known what the boy is said to have written about Erdoğan on the Internet.

Maximum sentence for presidential insult: Four years and eight months

The maximum penalty for “insulting the president” in Turkey is four years and eight months. Under Erdoğan's government, there are now thousands of investigations every year. The AKP leader is considered the fastest insulted president in the world. Between 2016 and 2019 alone, 9,276 people were sentenced to prison or fined in Turkey because Erdoğan felt offended by their remarks.