The president of Turkey has launched legal action to remove a Dutch cartoonist’s picture of him having sex with the Twitter emblem, press in the Netherlands are reporting.
Political cartoonist Ruben Oppenheimer published the crude image – which depicts Mr Erdogan wearing underwear with an ISIS flag printed on them while having sex with the famous Twitter blue bird logo – on the social media site.
But this month, Mr Oppenheimer revealed that he was contacted by email about the court order by Twitter Legal.
He said: ‘At first I thought it was spam. Until I opened the attached PDF file.
Political cartoonist Ruben Oppenheimer (pictured) published the insulting image – which shows Recep Tayyip Erdogan in ISIS underpants while holding Twitter’s blue bird mascot in front of his groin – earlier in the year
The letter from Twitter said the company did not plan to take any action against Oppenheimer, but merely wanted to inform him about the court order
In the Turkish text, Erdogan’s name is shown next to words roughly translated as ‘requesting’ while ‘twitter.com’ is next to words roughly translated as ‘opponent’
‘In the accompanying text Twitter explains that it is a court order from a Turkish judge in Istanbul which they want to inform me about.’
In the Turkish text, Mr Erdogan’s name is shown next to words roughly translated as ‘requesting’ while ‘twitter.com’ is next to words roughly translated as ‘opponent’.
Links to Mr Oppenheimer’s tweets are then listed, as well as to around 80 other Twitter users who also published or retweeted the cartoon.
The cartoon also includes a title – ‘Erdogan is not a goatf*****’ – as a reference to German comedian Jan Boehmermann, who was a victim of legal action after he wrote a poem saying Erdogan loved to ‘f*** goats.’
The letter from Twitter said the company did not plan to take any action against Mr Oppenheimer, but merely wanted to inform him about the court order.
It noted, however, that ‘we may be obliged to take action regarding the content identified in the legal request in the future’.
The Dutch cartoonist said he did not intend to remove the cartoon voluntarily and ‘politely’ told Twitter that he would not comply.
Dutch justice minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus, meanwhile, spoke today to defend Mr Oppenheimer.
AD reported that he told the country’s parliament: ‘We do not execute requests that are contrary to freedom of expression. There can be no question of extradition of a Dutch cartoonist.’
The Dutch cartoonist (pictured) said he did not intend to remove the cartoon voluntarily and ‘politely’ told Twitter that he would not comply
He was responding to a question from the MP Sven Koopmans – a member of the government party VVD – who sought to defend both Oppenheimer and freedom of expression.
He wrote on Twitter: ‘Scandalous attempt by Pres Erdogan to curtail our freedom of speech! He must stay away from our fundamental rights. NL must stand in the way of artists of the word.’
Mr Oppenheimer himself said: ‘Christmas came early this year in the form of a court order on behalf of my great goat f****** friend Erdogan.’
He asked other people to share the cartoon in support of freedom of expression.
Mr Oppenheimer added: ‘I won’t do anything for the time being. I informed myself with the Dutch Association of Journalists, of which I’m a member.
‘They said that I don’t need to take action until a registered letter arrives on my doormat.
‘To be sure, I asked in The Hague if the Netherlands has an extradition order with Turkey. There is indeed such an order, but it does not count for minor cases such as cartoons.
‘In the meanwhile I will wait and will not book my summer holidays to Turkey out of security reasons.’
Last year, Facebook removed Mr Oppenheimer’s cartoon from their social media platform, saying it violated their guidelines.
Facebook wrote: ‘We use the same guidelines worldwide that have been developed to make Facebook a safe place.’