Turkish actress Berna Laçin was charged with defaming religion for a tweet opposing capital punishment. She was acquitted.
her acting
Tolga Eşiz (husband), Ada Eşiz (daughter), Erman Laçin (father)
In 2018, amid the fallout of an incident where an 8-year-old, Eylül Yağlıkara, was sexually abused and murdered in Ankara, Turkish actress Berna Laçin tweeted that calls for capital punishment were misguided. She argued that “scientists, neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social scientists, [and] lawyers” should guide the practices of proper punishments and solutions for crimes of sexual abuse.
“If capital punishment was a solution, the city of Medina would not be breaking records in rape cases.” - Berna Laçin
A case was soon brought against Berna for her post, which prosecutors claimed insulted religious values and transgressed the bounds of free expression. Berna also said she was subject to targeted harassment the day she made her post.
Fortunately, she was acquitted. Even then, an appeals process took place to relitigate her case, but the appeals court upheld the initial decision.
2019 Report on International Religious Freedom: Turkey - U.S. Department of State
Lawsuit Brought Against Actress Laçin Over Anti Capital Punishment ‘Tweet’ - Freedom of Belief Initiative
Actor Berna Laçin, who was tried for her tweet, acquitted - BirGün [in Turkish]
Turkey's modern history has been a complicated push and pull between competing currents of Islamism (or Islamist sympathy) and secularism. The country has no official religion, but the governing party under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has increasingly diluted the borders between religion and state. Religious classes with an Islamic bent are taught in public schools, and the government has pursued a policy agenda in line with Islamic conservatism. Currently, the blasphemy law as written has a general scope against insulting religious beliefs, and a violation can be met with imprisonment.