A lawyer for a man accused of insulting the president of Turkey by comparing him to Gollum from the “Lord of the Rings” argued in court Tuesday that it was not a put-down because the creepy character was not a villain.

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It is now up to a panel of experts to descend from the Misty Mountains, or perhaps just their offices, to decide if the big-eyed grotesque creature who lurked Middle Earth in search of his precious ring was a good guy or a bad guy.

The theory was floated by attorney Hicran Danisman who is representing Bilgin Ciftci, a Turkish doctor who posted a meme on his Facebook page in October juxtaposing three photos of the Gollum with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.


The post resulted in Ciftci losing his job with the Public Health Institution of Turkey and being put on trial in the Middle East country where insulting public officials is a crime punishable by jail time.

Here’s what he wrote.

“Bu fotoğrafları paylaştığı için memuriyetten atılan Dr. Bilgin Çiftçi yalnız değildir! İlle bir işlem yapmak istiyorsanız Gollum’a hakaretten yapabilirsiniz! Adam yaratığa benziyor al işte malzeme ortada, şimdi o doktorun suçu ne?”

According to a translation from Google that means, “To share these photos with Dr. thrown the civil service. Scholar Farmer is not alone! Not necessarily want to do a procedure to gollum insult you can do it! The guy looks like a creature of material here, now that the doctor’s fault, what?”


What, indeed. It seems that it was not the words so much but the not-so-flattering photos that got the doctor in hot Turkish water. Erdogan is shown making some strange faces in three poses including one where he is eating a chicken leg.

According to The Washington Post, the judge said that he had only seen parts of the movies and did not know enough about Gollum to make a ruling. So he empaneled a group made up of academics, behavioral scientists and movie experts to decide.

The notion that Gollum was a hero, after all he did ultimately save Middle Earth after he bit off the Frodo’s finger to get the precious ring of power before falling to his death from Mount doom, has started quite the discussion on Reddit.

The story has racked up almost 2,500 comments that go something like this.


Buddha_is_my_homeboy: “We hates it! - Erdogan.”

Thorzaim: “Summon Stephen Colbert as an expert, film the whole thing and put it on Youtube.”

ETNxMARU: “Judge: “Should we be offended by this comparison?”

Everyone: “We don’t know. Maybe.”


Judge: “Does anyone here know if this is offensive?”

Everyone: “No.”

Judge: “Then go find out!”

fuzzhead: “It comes off like a Monty Python sketch or something.”


Indeed.

The trial will reconvene in February. If convicted, Ciftci could face two years in jail.