Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s wrath at the media recently reached Germany, bringing Berlin and Ankara to a diplomatic confrontation over German TV programs satirizing the Turkish leader. Amid tensions simmering since mid-March, the Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned the German ambassador in protest March 22 and sent Berlin a formal request for the prosecution of a comedian for insulting Erdogan in a poem recited on a satirical TV show.

With thin-skinned Turkey now raising a ruckus even across borders, what about the state of its satirists at home? As one would guess, they're not having a golden era. Turkey’s more prolific cartoonists, in particular, are under constant threat of trials and bullying, a climate they describe as worse than the military rule after the 1980 coup, often referenced as the lowest point of freedom and democracy in Turkey. In one cartoonist’s words, while previous leaders used the courts to discourage criticism, Erdogan acts with “exterminatory” motives.

According to Zafer Aknar, editor of the popular satirical weekly magazine Leman, more than 20 charges have been brought against it since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002. Two judicial probes are still ongoing, one of which far surpasses any satire in its ludicrousness. On March 30, Leman depicted Erdogan taking a selfie with a mukhtar — one of the village leaders he convenes at the presidential palace as audience for his weekly tirades out of spite for the British consul-general in Istanbul. Foreign diplomats had attended the trial of journalist Can Dundar and took a selfie with him in a gesture of support. A group of mukhtars lodged a complaint against Leman over the cartoon, claiming defamation because the fictitious mukhtar looked like Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan. The prosecutor took the complaint seriously and opened an investigation.

For Aknar, the prosecutor’s move shows how insecure and wary the judiciary itself has become. “Several folks complain and the prosecutor goes ahead out of fear. This has nothing to do with law,” Aknar told Al-Monitor. “Sometimes we really overdo it and we stand trial. That’s not a problem. The problem is in arbitrary action. The probes are being launched arbitrarily according to the leaders’ moods.”