{"id":26800,"date":"2018-12-24T19:23:17","date_gmt":"2018-12-24T19:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=26800"},"modified":"2018-12-24T19:23:17","modified_gmt":"2018-12-24T19:23:17","slug":"famous-turkish-actor-quizzed-over-threats-to-erdogan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=26800","title":{"rendered":"Famous Turkish actor quizzed over \u2018threats to Erdogan\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\" data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1425041\/middle-east\" readability=\"53\">\n<p>\nISTANBUL: A famous Turkish actor testified to Istanbul prosecutors on Monday after authorities opened a probe into whether comments he made on television threatened President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with death, local media reported.<br \/>Metin Akpinar, also a well-known comedian in Turkey, is accused of making \u201cinsulting\u201d statements that alluded to Erdogan.<br \/>\u201cIf we do not reach this (democracy), like what happened to all forms of fascism, the leader might be hung from his feet or maybe poisoned in the cellars or meet the same end as other leaders in the past,\u201d he reportedly said on television on Friday.<br \/>The Istanbul public prosecutor said on Sunday that Akpinar was being investigated over \u201cinsulting comments that targeted the Turkish president with coup and death threats.\u201d<br \/>Akpinar, 77, and another Turkish actor, Mujdat Gezen, had been taken by police officers separately to give testimony in the same investigation.<br \/>Akpinar had also claimed on opposition Halk TV that any leader who \u201cturned to Russia except Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) left office\u201d through coups.<br \/>Ataturk was the founder of modern Turkey.<br \/>Turkey has witnessed three military coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980. In 1997, an army-led campaign forced the government to resign and then in July 2016, there was an attempted overthrow of Erdogan blamed on a US-based Muslim preacher.<br \/>Akpinar said democracy was the \u201conly option to save Turkey from polarization.\u201d<br \/>Gezen, 75, was more direct in his remarks against Erdogan on the same program: \u201cHe tells the people \u2018know your place\u2019. Look Recep Tayyip Erdogan, you cannot test our patriotism. Know your place.\u201d<br \/>The investigation into the men came after the president said on Sunday: \u201cThey should be brought to account for this by the judiciary.\u201d<br \/>Erdogan hit out at the \u201cso-called artists\u201d during a speech in Istanbul. \u201cWe cannot leave this business without giving a response, they will pay the price.\u201d<br \/>Thousands of Turks including artists and journalists have been prosecuted in recent years over allegedly insulting Erdogan, although most have not been imprisoned.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ISTANBUL: A famous Turkish actor testified to Istanbul prosecutors on Monday after authorities opened a probe into whether comments he made on television threatened President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with death, local media reported.Metin Akpinar, also a well-known comedian in Turkey, is accused of making \u201cinsulting\u201d statements that alluded to Erdogan.\u201cIf we do not reach this&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":26801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}