Turkey arrests journalists over alleged cartoon of Prophet Muhammad
The four employees of a sacrifice magazine in Türkiye were arrested for publishing a cartoon showing the prophet Muhammad, a sacred religious figure, which was a prohibited depiction in Islam.
Türkiye’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya condemned the drawing of Leman Magazine as “Shameless” and announced that the editor -in -chief, graphic designer, corporate director and cartoonist were detained.
In an article on the social media site X, Leman rejected that his cartoon was a cartoon of Muhammad and said, “The business does not refer to the Prophet Muhammad in any way.”
Riot police were deployed to Istanbul on Monday because hundreds of people protested against the publication.
Apart from Leman’s offices, the protesters gathered slogans such as “tooth for tooth, blood for blood, revenge, revenge”.
A reporter for Agency France-Presse (AFP) News Agency reported that rubber bullets and tear gas were fired to distribute the crowd.
Türkiye’s Minister of Justice, the Attorney General Attorney General “insulting the public religious values” by the investigation was initiated by the investigation, he said.
Yilmaz Tunc X. “Cartoon or any visual representation of our prophet not only harm our religious values, but also harm social peace.”
The authority added that Leman will take necessary legal steps without delay against journalists. “
Yerlikaya also shared the videos of four employees arrested through “inferiority drawing”.
For other members of the magazine’s senior management, the arrest was ordered.
The images of the cartoon appeared on social media showing two characters with wings floating in the sky on a city under siege.
One of the characters was depicted by saying, “Peace be upon you, I Muhammad” and the other “Peace be on you, I Moses”.
Leman apologized to “painful well -intentioned readers”, but defended his work and rejected the claims that the cartoon was a depiction of Muhammad.
“The cartoonist wanted to describe the accuracy of the oppressed Muslim people by describing a Muslim who was killed by Israel and never intended to insult religious values.” He said.
He continued: “We do not accept the stain poured to us because there is no depiction of our Prophet. You must be very malicious to interpret the cartoon in this way.”
Leman’s editor -in -chief Tuncay Akgun, who is currently in Paris, said that the study was misinterpreted to AFP and that the magazine would never take such a risk.
He added that the reaction had drawn similarities with Charlie Hebdo, which is “very deliberate and very worrying”, and refers to the 2015 attack after publishing a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.
Charlie Hebdo’s offices were stormed by armed men who killed 12 people and is one of the worst security crises in French history.
