h/t Wonkette:

Send us your entries for our ‘President Erdogan Insulting Poetry Competition’

“There is a prize of £1,000 - so start composing your foul verses”

At the end of last month, a German comedian appeared on German television and read a poem mocking Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey. Jan Böhmermann’s satire was directed, among other things, at the laws President Erdogan has been using to lock up his critics. Turkey — which David Cameron is still fighting to bring into the EU — now has some of the world’s most repressive speech laws. Numerous journalists have been arrested for ‘insulting’ President Erdogan and he has even been known to ban Twitter in the country when corruption allegations against him and his family have surfaced online.

Yet until Mr Böhmermann came on the scene, one might have expected these lèse-majesté laws to remain in Turkey. Not so. After the late-night comedy show in Germany, the Turkish government complained. Then the show disappeared. Then Mr Böhmermann disappeared under police protection. Then the prosecution began. Yes — in Germany in 2016, a comedian is now going to be tried for being rude about a foreign despot.