Prison sentence for artificial nude photo montage in Antalya

A woman living in Antalya filed a criminal complaint against the person who allegedly took her face photo from her Instagram account, mounted it on a naked female body and sent it to her. A lawsuit was filed against the defendant at the Antalya 24th Criminal Court of First Instance for "violating the right to privacy". The court evaluated the documents and information in the file, the expert report and the statements taken during the investigation and prosecution stages, and decided to acquit the defendant on the grounds that the act charged to the defendant was not defined as a crime in the law.

ACQUITTAL DECISION REVERSED ON APPEAL

After the complainant's lawyer filed an appeal against the acquittal decision, the file was moved to the 11th Criminal Chamber of the Antalya Regional Court of Justice. In its examination by opening a hearing, the chamber took into consideration that the defendant had confessed to the act. In the expert report, it was stated that due to the large amount of data belonging to the defendant, obscene photographs were found on the phone that the defendant apparently used, which were clearly edited using montage applications. The chamber ruled that the defendant's action of montaging the face photograph he obtained from his virtual media account onto a naked woman's body in order to blackmail the woman constituted the crime of 'Illegally giving or obtaining data' as regulated in Article 136 of the Turkish Penal Code. The chamber annulled the first instance court's acquittal decision and sentenced the defendant to 1 year and 8 months in prison.

THE SUPREME COURT FOUND NO CONTRADICTION WITH THE LAW