Turkish authorities have ordered the arrest of six people, all of them staff members of the satirical magazine “Leman”, after it published in its latest edition a story depicting a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad, sparking outrage from many sections of society and politics in Turkey, which have described it as an attack on religious values in a Muslim-majority country.
According to Turkish media reports in recent hours, the controversy was sparked by the publication in the 26 June edition of “Leman” of a cartoon depicting caricatures of two characters named Muhammad (Mohammed) and Musa (Moses) by the author. The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office then launched an ex officio investigation, during which an arrest warrant was issued for 6 defendants, including among them cartoonist D.P., graphic artist C.O., editorial director Z.A., administrative director A.Y., editor and owner of the magazine T.A., and another editor-in-chief of the publication.
They are all charged with “incitement to public hatred and humiliation“. However, the two editors could not be arrested because they were abroad. The prosecutor’s office also ordered the confiscation of the 26 June edition of the Leman magazine that published the cartoon, and proceedings have been opened to block access to the publication’s social networks as well.
During the early hours of the morning, a crowd of people gathered outside the magazine’s offices on Istanbul’s central İstiklal Avenue in the Beyoğlu district, where they threw stones at Leman’s headquarters, chanted slogans and publicly prayed amid a large security deployment by police, who eventually dispersed the protest using tear gas and rubber bullets and cordoned off access to the area. Security measures around the magazine’s offices were still in place this morning to prevent further unrest, and local authorities have imposed a ban on all protests and demonstrations throughout the day in Beyoğlu.
Messages of condemnation against satirical magazine
Members of the government, civil organisations and numerous citizens via social media have condemned the cartoon as a “provocation” and disrespectful to the religious values of believers. Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç published the details of the investigation opened against Leman for a publication he considered “disrespectful to our beliefs“: “No freedom of expression guarantees the right to make the sacred values of a faith the subject of distasteful humour… The caricature or any visual form of the cartoon is a provocation to the religious values of believers. The caricature or any visual form of depiction of our Prophet not only damages our religious values, it also damages social peace,” he stressed.
President Erdoğan‘s communications chief, Fahrettin Altun, described the cartoon as unacceptable and immoral but called on the public “not to fall into provocation“. For his part, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan condemned “the immoral and provocative attack on our Prophet carried out under the guise of humour“. Meanwhile, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya released images of the arrest of the suspects on social media and denounced the cartoon as an attempt to “sow the seeds of discord“.
Erdoğan’s AKP party spokesman Ömer Çelik also condemned in statements to journalists this morning the publication of a cartoon that he considered an insult to both Muhammad and Moses, both considered prophets in Islam: “This is something that has multiple dimensions. We have been seeing attacks on the Quran and our prophet in Europe by some fascist groups. We have been fighting against Islamophobia… This is not artistic expression, this is a hate crime,” Çelik said.
From the main opposition party, the CHP, the reaction was much more timid, with some voices trying to justify the publication in the realm of freedom of expression. Interestingly, the strongest condemnation came from Ekrem İmamoğlu, the recently imprisoned mayor of Istanbul on corruption charges, who through a message posted on social media unequivocally condemned “an impertinent act against our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), a blessing to the world, and against the Prophet Moses“. “The publishers of the cartoon say their intention was to draw attention to the oppression in Gaza, but their way of doing so has broken the hearts of believers. We must never allow provocateurs who try to incite our citizens with issues that are sensitive to them to create an atmosphere of tension,” İmamoğlu wrote.
The magazine defends itself: “There was no intention to insult religion“
The magazine that is the subject of the controversy, Leman, is known for having in the past made collaborations with another well-known French satirical publication, Charlie Hebdo, also famous for having repeatedly published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, which led to it suffering a bloody terrorist attack in 2015 . Precisely İmamoğlu was referring in his message to the statement made by Leman, who in his defence has argued that the published images depict a Muslim and a Jew and are not intended as a representation of Muhammad and Moses.
“The cartoonists sought to highlight the righteousness of oppressed Muslims by depicting a Muslim killed by Israel. There was no intention to insult religious values,” the publication said. However, the images depicted seem to contradict Leman’s statements: one on the left says “Peace be with you, I am Muhammad“, while the other responds “Peace be with you, I am Moses“.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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