Turkey detains 2 cartoonists over satirical drawing depicting Moses and Muhammad
The cartoon, widely seen as a commentary on religious harmony in contrast to conflict on Earth, drew strong condemnation from government officials and religious conservatives.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya shared a video on X showing police officers detaining cartoonist Dogan Pehlevan and dragging him up the stairs of a building with his hands cuffed behind his back.
"I once again curse those who try to sow discord by drawing caricatures of our Prophet Muhammad," Yerlikaya wrote.
"The individual who drew this vile image, D.P., has been apprehended and taken into custody. These shameless people will be held accountable before the law."
Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said an investigation had been launched under Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code, which criminalises incitement to hatred and enmity, and that detention orders had been issued for four people in total.
In its statement on X, the Leman magazine apologised to readers who felt offended and said the cartoon had been misunderstood.
It said Pehlevan had sought to highlight "the suffering of a Muslim man killed in Israeli attacks", and that there was no intent to insult Islam or its prophet.
"The name Muhammad is among the most widely used in the world by Muslims honoring the Prophet. The cartoon does not depict the Prophet and was not drawn to mock religious values," the magazine said, calling some interpretations "deliberately malicious."
Leman also urged judicial authorities to act against what it called a smear campaign, and asked security forces to protect freedom of expression.
Earlier in the evening, video footage on social media showed a group of protesters marching to Leman's office building in central Istanbul, chanting slogans and kicking its entrance doors.
Turkey's ranking for freedom of expression is consistently low, reflecting significant restrictions on media and public discourse. Reporters Without Borders ranks Turkey 158th out of 180 countries in its 2024 Press Freedom Index.
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Islamist protesters clash with police and scream 'long live sharia, jihad... don't forget Charlie Hebdo' after Turkish magazine is accused of publishing cartoon of Prophet Mohammed
Angry protests erupted in Istanbul today following allegations a satirical magazine in Turkey had published a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. A group of some 300 protesters issued a chilling warning as they took to the streets on Tuesday, chanting 'don't forget Charlie Hebdo'. The crowd was referring to the 2015 attack on a Paris magazine when Islamist gunmen killed 12 after it published caricatures lampooning the Prophet Mohammed. Unrest began late on Monday after the city's chief prosecutor ordered the arrest of staff at LeMan, claiming it had published a cartoon that 'insulted religious values'. An angry mob of hardline Islamist protesters clashed with police late into the night after news of the warrant emerged, an AFP correspondent said. 'Down with secularism, long live sharia (law)! Jihad, jihad, martyrdom!' they had shouted while tussling with police, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets. The weekly has categorically denied the allegation, with its editor-in-chief telling AFP that its cartoon had 'nothing to do with the Prophet Mohammed'. Illustrator Dogan Pehlevan had sought to highlight 'the suffering of a Muslim man killed in Israeli attacks', the magazine said. The cartoon, published last Thursday, shows two winged, bearded men shaking hands and introducing themselves as Mohammed and Musa (Moses). Bullets are seen falling from the sky as a city skyline burns around them. It was flanked by cartoons satirizing poverty and marginalisation in Turkey. The magazine apologised to readers who felt offended and said it had been misunderstood, adding that there was no intent to insult Islam or its prophet. Erdogan and his ruling AK Party nonetheless condemned what the party called an 'Islamophobic hate crime' as officials paraded the arrests of staff. Interpretations have varied. Opposition leader Ozgur Ozel said he was initially shocked when he first heard the allegations, but after seeing it came to a different conclusion. 'Take a proper look: I see an angel who died in a bombardment in Gaza, with a halo and wings who encounters another angel also killed by a bomb.. (but) Mohammad is a prophet, not an angel,' he said. 'I will not allow any disrespect to the Prophet Mohammed, but I won't remain silent about a social lynching based on a non-existant disrespect.' Speaking to AFP from Paris, LeMan editor-in-chief Tuncay Akgun said the image had been deliberately misinterpreted to cause provocation. 'In this work, the name of a Muslim who was killed in Israel's bombardments is fictionalised as Mohammed,' he said. 'This cartoon is not a caricature of Prophet Mohammed in any way,' he said, describing the arrest warrant as a "systematic provocation and attack" on the decades-old satirical magazine. Hundreds of people nonetheless rallied against Leman in central Istanbul on Tuesday, despite a ban on gatherings and a heavy police presence. Police shut Taksim Square and Istiklal, the city's busy shopping thoroughfare, in response. One protester in Istanbul said the defence seemed insincere. They said: 'There is a subtle emphasis there on both the Prophet (Mohammad) and the Prophet Moses.' Devout Muslims regard depictions of the Prophet Mohammad as blasphemous. A correspondent for the AFP news agency said the protesters were far less aggressive than those who rallied on Monday night, when around 400 Islamist hardliners tried to storm a bar frequented by the magazine staff. But the streets have filled with people carrying banners and shouting abuse at the magazine since authorities arrested staff and denounced what President Erdogan's ruling party called an 'Islamophobic hate crime'. 'We will not allow anyone to speak against our sacred values,' Erdogan said in televised remarks, adding that authorities would closely follow the legal process. 'Those who show disrespect to our Prophet and other prophets will be held accountable before the law,' he said. The magazine urged authorities to counter what it called a smear campaign, and to protect freedom of expression. Four Leman cartoonists were detained late on Monday over the drawing. Late on Monday, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya shared a video on X showing police officers detaining Pehlevan, the cartoonist, with his hands cuffed behind his back as he was dragged up a stairwell. He also shared videos of three other men being removed from their homes and dragged into vans, one of them barefoot. 'The individual who drew this vile image, D.P., has been apprehended and taken into custody. These shameless people will be held accountable before the law,' Yerlikaya wrote. People shout slogans during a protest against LeMan magazine outside Taksim mosque today Several civil society groups condemned the detentions as a violation of freedom of thought and expression. The government said an inquiry was launched under a penal code article that criminalises incitement to hatred and enmity. Turkey's freedom of expression ranking is low due to restrictions on media and public discourse.
Spectator
3 hours ago
- Spectator
Turkey's Prophet Muhammad cartoon row is an ugly sign of the times
Hundreds of Turkish Islamists have attacked a satirical magazine after claiming that it published a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Protestors chanted 'tooth for tooth, blood for blood, revenge, revenge' outside the office of LeMan, which denied that the image was of Muhammad. Police quickly intervened, erecting barricades and firing pepper spray. But instead of cracking down further on the Islamists, the Turkish authorities appear to now be targeting the journalists. Four employees of the magazine have been arrested and the chief public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into claims that the cartoon 'publicly insult(ed) religious values'. I was in the area when the attack unfolded yesterday in Istanbul's Beyoglu district. Passers by, angered by 'God is great' chants and insults at Turkey's sacred secularism, challenged the demonstrators, shouting, 'This is the Turkish Republic, you can't call for sharia!' The protestors then turned on these people before the police timidly stepped in. As the night progressed, hundreds more furious Islamists flocked to the area. The main slogans were 'War, jihad, martyrdom', 'The infidel LeMan will answer', and 'Sharia shall come, Kemalism will end', referring to the secular ideology of the country's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Some individuals even openly screamed slurs at the police officers' mothers – another sacred taboo that very few would dare to openly do. The riot police held the line, occasionally using pepper spray when protestors tried to break through. But it was by far the most timid response I have ever seen from the Turkish police in such situations during all the protests I have attended over the years. Had it been any other political group, whether Kurds, leftists, feminists, or republicans, the arrests would no doubt have been in the hundreds, with the organisers rounded up at dawn from their bedrooms by the counter-terrorism forces. Of course, this isn't to say the police have sat on their hands. Interior minister Ali Yerlikaya released a series of videos showing officers roughly handcuffing and dragging out of their homes the caricaturist and the magazine's aging managers. 'I repeat once again: These blasphemers will be held accountable before the law,' the minister said. But not a word on those who attacked his police officers the same night and called for the exile and death of 'infidels'. Just the day before this ugly event, a group of gay people tried to hold the annual Istanbul Pride march. The official response was starkly different to what happened outside LeMan. For the few dozen protesters who gathered, the police mobilised in their thousands, shutting down two neighbourhoods, and arresting the attendees. Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the so-called Sivas massacre. It occurred in 1993 when a violent Islamist mob set fire to a hotel in Sivas where leftist intellectuals were holding a conference – mostly from the Alevi religious minority. The police stood back as 35 people were burned alive. On the old VHS footage of the incident, one can hear the same slogans and see similar faces as yesterday in Istanbul. Another incident many are now drawing parallels with is the Charlie Hebdo attack. In 2015, two al-Qaeda gunmen stormed the French satirical magazine's office in Paris, killing 12 people. The attackers targeted the magazine for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. No doubt alive to the dangers, LeMan quickly decided to back down. 'This caricature is not a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon his name),' they tweeted. An unconvincing argument that the image just portrayed a regular Muslim called Muhammad, of whom there are 200 million in the world, was put forward. Even this is unlikely to save the magazine from being shut down. Religious values and the image of the Prophet Muhammad – who is not supposed to be depicted – are highly sacred in Turkish society. But so was the secular nationalist heritage of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The response from the authorities yesterday and the lack of a 'Je suis LeMan' movement today show that dynamics are slowly but steadily shifting in Turkey.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Clashes and arrests in Turkey over magazine cartoon allegedly depicting prophet Muhammad
Clashes erupted in Istanbul with police firing rubber bullets and teargas to disperse a mob on Monday after allegations that a satirical magazine had published a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad. The clashes occurred after Istanbul's chief prosecutor ordered the arrest of the editors at LeMan magazine on grounds it had published a cartoon that 'publicly insulted religious values'. The magazine's editor-in-chief, Tuncay Akgun, said the image had been misinterpreted. 'This cartoon is not a caricature of prophet Muhammad in any way,' he told Agence France-Presse. 'In this work, the name of a Muslim who was killed in the bombardments of Israel is fictionalised as Muhammad. More than 200 million people in the Islamic world are named Muhammad. '[It] has nothing to do with prophet Muhammad. We would never take such a risk.' As the news broke, several dozen angry protesters attacked a bar often frequented by LeMan staffers in downtown Istanbul, provoking angry scuffles with police, an AFP correspondent said. The scuffles quickly became clashes involving between 250 to 300 people, the correspondent said. Founded in 1991, LeMan is famed for its political satire and has long been the bane of conservatives, especially following its support for France's Charlie Hebdo after its Paris offices were attacked in 2015 by Islamist gunmen who killed 12 following the magazine's publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. The interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, said on that X police had arrested the cartoonist responsible for the image as well as LeMan's graphic designer. 'The person named DP who made this vile drawing has been caught and taken into custody,' he wrote, adding: 'These shameless individuals will be held accountable before the law.' Others named in the arrest warrant were LeMan's editor-in-chief and its managing editor, media reports said. In a string of posts on X, LeMan defended the cartoon and said it had been deliberately misinterpreted to cause a provocation. 'The cartoonist wanted to portray the righteousness of the oppressed Muslim people by depicting a Muslim killed by Israel, he never intended to belittle religious values,' it said. 'We do not accept the stigma imposed on us because there is no depiction of our prophet. It takes a very malicious person to interpret the cartoon in this way." 'We apologise to our well-intentioned readers who we think were subjected to provocations.' The justice minister, Yilmaz Tunc, said an investigation had been opened on grounds of 'publicly insulting religious values'. 'Disrespect towards our beliefs is never acceptable,' he wrote on X. 'No freedom grants the right to make the sacred values of a belief the subject of ugly humour. The caricature or any form of visual representation of our prophet not only harms our religious values but also damages societal peace.' Istanbul's governor, Davut Gul, also lashed out at 'this mentality that seeks to provoke society by attacking our sacred values'. 'We will not remain silent in the face of any vile act targeting our nation's faith,' he said.
