A TURKISH judge has ordered an “expert investigation” into the Lord of the Rings character Gollum to determine whether being compared to the diminutive ring-fancier is an insult.

The judge made the bizarre request in the case against Dr Bilgin Çiftçi, a physician from Aydın in Western Turkey, who is on trial for sharing a meme which compared the popular character’s facial expressions to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Dr Çiftçi, who was expelled from his job at the Public Health Institution of Turkey in October, is on trial for insulting the Russian plane-destroying, enthusiastic journalist-jailing, definitely-not-ISIS-funding president Erdogan.

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The meme compares three images of Mr Erdogan with Gollum, brought to life in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy by Andy Serkis, showing them both eating, expressing surprise and amazement. To be fair, the resemblance is uncanny.

Local news site Today’s Zaman reports Dr Çiftçi faces a prison sentence of up to two years. After no decision could be reached in the fourth hearing of the case, the judge ordered the investigation to be conducted by no less than five people: two academics, two behavioural scientists or psychologists, and an expert on cinema and television productions.

Neither the prosecutor nor the chief judge had seen the movies, despite the Gollum character being at the centre of the case. According to Today’s Zaman, Dr Çiftçi claimed Gollum was not a bad character and that he did not insult anyone.

frank.chung@news.com.au

Originally published as Man facing jail over Gollum meme