On 26 June 2025, the 14th hearing of the trial against cartoonist Zehra Ömeroğlu will take place in Istanbul. Accused of ‘obscenity’ she faces up to three years in prison.
In countries like Türkiye, where violations of freedom of expression are frequent, life itself can sometimes take the form of dark humour. Going back even before the founding of the Republic of Türkiye, it reads like a bitter joke that Abdülhamit II, the first Ottoman sultan to be caricatured, banned humour publishing for 30 years between 1878 and 1908. It is not easy to make sense of a country’s present without travelling through its history of censorship. When we look at Türkiye’s past, as in the example above, we come across a history of bans that traces its roots back to the Ottoman Empire.
If we continue our journey through history, we see that Markopaşa, a magazine published in the 1940s by Aziz Nesin, Sabahattin Ali, and Rıfat Ilgaz, all cult writers in Türkiye, was frequently seized by authorities, and its illustrators and writers were arrested. The publishers humorously criticised this situation: “Markopaşa is published when it is not confiscated, and its writers are not in prison!”
Today, we see that cartoonists in Türkiye are often targeted, imprisoned and arrested on charges that verge on the absurd. One of those cartoonists is Zehra Ömeroğlu, against whom a lawsuit was filed on charges of “obscenity”, with a prison sentence of up to three years and a heavy fine. The case concerns her cartoon “Sex in the Pandemic”, which depicts a couple making love while staying at home during the pandemic, published in the Istanbul-based comic magazine LeMan on 25 November 2020. The first hearing was held on 4 October 2022.
Today, the cartoonist, whose works appear in various international publications, including Le Monde, started out as an ‘amateur’ with a degree in business. Ömeroğlu began drawing as a hobby at a young age and has been a professional cartoonist for 13 years. She explores the absurdity of the so-called seriousness of everyday life, women’s stories, taboos, human psychology and our inner conflicts. “Although I feel brave when I compare the cartoons, I drew ten years ago to the ones I create today, I recognise how self-censorship has insidiously taken root in me,” she says in an interview.
Ömeroğlu has created many cartoons that criticise Türkiye’s political agenda. However, she believes that the prosecution she is facing for her cartoon “Sex in the Pandemic” stems from her identity as a female cartoonist. She points out that women have increasingly been associated with “the moral issues” in recent years. Given the oppression against women in Türkiye, often occurring with impunity, this insight carries significant weight.
Pandemide Seks (Sex in the Pandemic),” Zehra Ömeroğlu, LeMan (25 Nov 2020).
The report issued by the Board for the Protection of Minors from Obscene Publications on the obscenity of Ömeroğlu’s cartoon is another indication of this. The report claims that the cartoon “is completely contrary to the customs, traditions and morals of the society and that its main purpose is to create sexual arousal in the viewer and to benefit from it”.
On 5 May 2025, the US-based Cartoonists Rights Robert Russell Prize for Courage in Cartooning was awarded to Zehra Ömeroğlu. Terry Anderson, Executive Director of Cartoonists Rights, shared insights regarding Ömeroğlu’s case: “In our view, her prosecution is entirely based on her gender; the same cartoon, in the same space and at the same time with a male by-line, simply would not have elicited the same (over)reaction from state censors. Like many outspoken women in Turkey, Zehra has faced deliberate persecution, but this attempt to silence her has backfired completely. As a direct result of her prosecution, Zehra’s cartoons are now regularly featured in international media.”
Despite Ömeroğlu’s determination to continue her fight, the fact that her case has been ongoing for more than four years effectively transforms the legal process into a form of punishment. At the same time, the repeated postponement of Ömeroğlu’s trial constitutes a violation of the right to a trial within a reasonable time guaranteed by Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Ömeroğlu likens this situation to Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP lawsuits). These lawsuits are designed to censor, intimidate, and silence critics or creators by burdening them with the costs of legal defence until they abandon their criticism or opposition. Moreover, years of uncertainty can create insecurity and distract them from their work.
All eyes are now on the 14th hearing of Ömeroğlu’s case, which will be held on 26 June 2025. Artists, arts and culture workers and activists have no choice but to come together and raise a strong voice against this continuous, normalised and diversified oppression.
By Özlem Altunok, Freemuse Researcher, Türkiye
