British artist fined for "mocking" Turkish PM Erdogan

Michael Dickinson walked smiling from the Kadikoy district court, a free man, but not completely off the hook.

The judge ruled that the British artist had crossed the line with his cartoon, superimposing the head of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on the body of a dog, and found him guilty of insulting Mr Erdogan's "dignity and honour".

The judge sentenced him to 425 days in prison, the first time anyone has been jailed for criticising the prime minister.

But the sentence was immediately commuted to a fine of about £3,000.

When a defiant Mr Dickinson insisted he would not pay, the judge explained that, provided he made no new cartoons of the prime minister over the next five years, the fine would be put aside.

"Of course I'm relieved", he told the BBC outside the court.

"I didn't know what to expect. But I still don't think I should have been guilty, and I'm not saying I'm not going to make any more cartoons of politicians."

It has been quite a legal saga for the 59-year-old teacher, writer, anti-war activist and founder of the Istanbul branch of the Stuckist art movement.


/BBC/