Former Miss Turkey facing two years jail over anti-government Instagram post

A single social media post could be enough to land a former beauty queen in jail for two years.

Former Miss Turkey 2006 Merve Buyuksarac, 26, is in hot water after posting a poem from a satirical magazine on her Instagram page, which poked fun at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, The Washington Post reports.

Having left the beauty pageant world behind to work as an industrial designer and writer, Buyuksarac reposted 'The Master's Poem', originally published in Turkish magazine Uykusuz, last year.

Buyuksarac reportedly deleted the post soon after, having been warned by a friend it could get her in trouble with the law.

She is now under investigation for "insulting a public official", and could be jailed for up to two years if found guilty.

"I shared it because it was funny to me," Buyuksarac said. "I did not intend to insult Recep Tayyip Erdogan."

"If you google the poem I shared, you will see 960,000 more people shared it... it's interesting, isn't it?"

But prosecutors said the post was not considered "in the context of freedom of expression" because it "overtly humiliated" the president.

A court will now consider whether the case should proceed to trial.

Erdogan was elected president in August, after serving as Turkey's prime minister since 2003, and has spearheaded a massive crackdown on social media and journalists.

Sixty seven people have been charged with insulting the president since he was elected, including a 16-year-old boy for making a speech in which he described Erdogan as "the thieving owner of the illegal palace".

Erdogan also attempted to ban Turkish citizens from accessing Twitter, only for the ban to be overturned by a court last April.

Source: Washington Post