ISTANBUL: Police sealed off the centre of Istanbul on Tuesday to block protesters from rallying at a mosque following allegations a satirical magazine published a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.
Police clashed with protesters in the area late Monday, firing tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse them as they tried to storm a bar frequented by staff of LeMan, a Turkish satirical weekly.
The unrest began after Istanbul’s chief prosecutor ordered the arrest of several of LeMan’s senior staff on grounds it had published a cartoon in its June 26 issue that “publicly insulted religious values”.
The magazine categorically denied the allegation, with its editor-in-chief telling AFP the image had “nothing to do with the Prophet Mohammed”.
But news about the warrant sparked anger on the streets with several dozen protesters trying to storm a bar frequented by the magazine staff, which turned into a mob of 250 to 300 people who clashed with police, an AFP correspondent said.
A group called the Islamic Solidarity Platform also urged protesters to join a midday (0900 GMT) rally on Tuesday at the Hussein Agha mosque on Istanbul’s central Istiklal Avenue.
“Insulting the Prophet Mohammed and the prophet Moses is unacceptable! Arise!” it said on social media.
– ‘No justification for violence’ –
The violence drew sharp condemnation from Erol Onderoglu, the Turkey representative of Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
“There is no justification for such violence, which we strongly condemn,“ he told AFP, saying it was “hard to understand” why the police did not intervene sooner and that the “cartoonists’ safety must take priority”.
Overnight, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya posted images of the cartoonist, LeMan’s graphic designer, its publisher and another staff member being roughly dragged away under arrest, prompting a rebuke from Turkish rights group MLSA.
“Detaining cartoonists and subjecting them to mistreatment under the accusation of ‘insulting religious values’ over a cartoon is unlawful and violates both the Turkish Constitution and Turkey’s international obligations,“ its co-director Veysel Ok wrote on X.
“Even if a non-violent image or statement disturbs, offends, or provokes a large part of society, it is still protected by freedom of expression.”
Copies of the disputed cartoon posted online show two characters hovering in the skies over a city being bombed.
“Salam aleikum, I’m Mohammed,“ says one shaking hands with the other who replies, “Aleikum salam, I’m Musa.” In English, Musa can be translated as Moses.
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.
