Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not known to be humorous or sympathetic toward those who lampoon him. His anger toward the most innocuous of caricatures surfaced shortly after he became prime minister in 2003. In one of his first acts, which set the tone of his relationship with the press, Erdogan took the daily Cumhuriyet to court for depicting him as a cat entangled in yarn in a cartoon.
Erdogan lost that case, but his wrath toward critics in and out of the media never diminished. The Turkish president has opened 2,000 cases against journalists, artists and ordinary citizens he accuses of insulting him or members of his family.
