Turkish Doctor Faces Prison: 'Lord of the Rings' Experts Appointed to Determine Man's Fate

A Turkish doctor faces two years in prison for comparing the Turkish president to Lord of the Ring's Gollum in a Facebook post, and have LOTR experts have been appointed by the court to determine the man's fate?

Americans may complain about censorship here in the good old USA, but it's nothing compared to Turkey. Imagine every Obama or Bush detractor being put in prison for 2-4 years for insulting the president. We'd basically have to build a prison wall around the US. I suppose that would solve the immigration problem.

A Turkish doctor has recently been put on trial for posting a comparison of the current Turkish President (a notoriously thin-skinned individual) with Gollum, the more than slightly creepy character from The Lord of the Rings. And unsurprisingly, the president (or one of his orcs, I mean minions) took offense. Thus Bilgin Çiftçi faces a prison sentence of two years.

But he may beat the charge. The doctor is arguing "that comparing Erdogan to Gollum was actually a compliment, since Gollum is the hero of the piece." Sorry, Doc, but I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Fortunately for him, his sentence is not being determined by me.

Instead, when Çiftçi's lawyer challenged the judge on the movie. The judge then "called for an expert panel to determine whether Çiftçi's defense is valid. The group will comprise two academics, two behavioral scientists or psychologists and an expert on cinema and television productions."

To sum it up, "Two academics, two psychologists and a film professor now decide whether a man goes to jail for two years because he shared a dumb meme."

I suppose what I really should be concerned about here is the same man who takes offense at a Gollum reference (and ban Twitter) is the same one who has the power to shoot down Russian airplanes.

Tell us your thoughts on the situation in the comments box below!