Doctor Winds up in Turkish Court for Posting Facebook Meme Comparing President Erdoğan and ‘Lord of the Rings’ Gollum

You’ve seen a lot about Turkey in the news lately. The media is having a hard time downplaying the fact that U.S. ally Turkey has been caught smuggling ISIS oil. Just as Russia produced hard proof that U.S. ally Turkey is helping smuggle said ISIS oil, all of a sudden there’s a mass shooting in San Bernardino and hardly anyone is talking about how U.S. ally Turkey was aiding and abetting and making money off of the same terrorists America is now sending even more troops to go fight.

Well, on a side note, apparently a Turkish court is currently investigating much more important matters, like [amazon text=%22The Lord of the Rings%22&asin=B00HFFE8HE] character Gollum. Why?

Because Dr. Bilgin Çiftçi has been accused of “insulting a public official” by sharing a meme of the Turkish president Tayyip Erdoğan on his personal Facebook account which compares the president to Gollum.

Via the Doğan Haber Ajansi news outlet:

Dr Bilgin Çiftçi based in Aegean province of Aydın has been accused of “insulting a public official” with this meme that he has shared through his personal Facebook account.

The court decided that an investigation by the referee regarding whether Gollum is a bad character will be necessary, while the trial was reprieved, in its fourth round that has taken place on Dec. 1.

The trial will not only include numerous lawyers, and research conducted on whether or not Gollum’s character is “good, bad, ugly, or suffering” etc., but the probe also involve everyone from psychologists to behavioral scientists to cinema experts… all because the Turkish president let a Facebook meme with an imaginary character hurt his feelings.

Meanwhile, Dr. Çiftçi has been fired from the family hospital he has worked at for over two decades for the charge of “insulting statesmen” just for putting up the Facebook meme.

(H/T Luke Rudkowski)