Turkish influencer sentenced to five months in prison for 'insulting men'

Turkish social media personality Puccaa hsa been sentenced to five months and 18 days in prison for "insulting men" over a tweet in which she said that she didn't like "the inferior, characterless sex that is the male."

Friday October 22 2021 01:03 pm

Duvar English

Turkey's social media personality Puccaa, legally called Pınar Yıldırım, was sentenced to five months and 18 days in prison for "belittling a part of society on the basis of social class, religion, sect, sex or regional differences," she said on her Twitter on Oct. 22.

The internet personality said that the court's decision sounds like a story from Zaytung, a Turkish media outlet that creates satirical news stories criticizing the country's news agenda.

"It's going to sound like a Zaytung story but I got sentenced to five months in prison for insulting men! I hate to compare, but are you kidding me with 'insulting men' when there's so many femicides happening every day?" the influencer wrote on her Twitter.

Zaytung haberi gibi olacak ama erkeklere hakaret ettiğim için 5 ay hapis cezası aldım! Kıyaslamaktan nefret ediyorum, bu kadar kadın cinayeti varken ciddi misiniz siz ya, erkeğe hakaret mi?????? dünyanın en saçma davalarında ilk ona girer yemin ederim. pic.twitter.com/B49bPzQQzx
— PuCCa (@PuCCaa) October 22, 2021

The influencer's social media post that prompted the sentence said that she had watched many shows and movies with gay male characters, and still didn't "like the inferior, characterless sex that is the male."

"I hope they don't assign an expert to determine whether I like men or not. Every bad thing that happened to me was because of men! You must be so fragile, talking about insulting men," the influencer said in another tweet.

Insult charges are a common tool deployed by the Turkish judiciary under the ruling Justice and Party (AKP), most often with the president or his deputies as the complainants.