Homeless man in Turkey insults Erdoğan in hope of getting food and shelter in jail

A homeless 66-year-old man in Turkey deliberately insulted President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the hope of getting food and a place to sleep in jail.

He was detained in a park in Alanya, a resort town in the southern province of Antalya.

A court ordered him held in pretrial detention, after he told it he had nowhere to stay and slept in rubbish dumps.

He had reportedly been detained three times before on the same allegation but had not been held in pretrial detention.

Insulting the president is a crime in Turkey and the law has often been used to prosecute critics, including journalists and teenagers.

Prosecutors opened nearly 83,000 cases from 2016 to the end of 2025 involving offenses that include insulting the president and state institutions.

The man is being held pending trial; the law carries a prison term of one to four years for insulting the president.