Turkish court arrests Tiktok döner kebap influencer for ‘insulting Atatürk’

Duvar English

Turkish police on Nov. 11 detained Tiktok personality Mustafa Atmaca from his residence in Turkey’s eastern province of Erzurum after his remarks criticizing Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic, on Nov. 10, the anniversary of his death, during a TikTok livestream, according to reporting by Demirören News Agency. The court Atmaca was brought in for questioning and arrested him later in the day. 

Mustafa Atmaca is a kebap shop owner and TikTok content creator based in Erzurum. He garnered a following of 620,000 on the platform. 

Mustafa Atmaca said during the live stream, “You will leave, this is our land. We will go to war in Arabia as well. Turkey, Yemen, and Jerusalem are our lands. You will go to Israel. The Ottomans did not lose, those secular dogs lost all the land. Those dogs who introduced secularity, they are the ones who lost the land.” 

Atmaca was widely criticized by his followers after his remarks. The Erzurum office of Turkey’s main opposition party Republican People’s Party (CHP) and lawyers from the Erzurum bar filed official complaints against him.

Atmaca was taken from his residence by the Erzurum police department for “insulting Atatürk.”

TikTok personality Atmaca later said his words were misrepresented and taken out of context. His statement following the detainment said, “If those who spread the video included the beginning and end of my statement, they would see that the sentence was not about Great Leader Atatürk and the honorable architects of the Republic.”