Türkiye arrests journalists for alleged cartoons of the prophet Muhammad

Four employees of a satirical magazine in Türkiye have been arrested for publishing a cartoon that seems to show the prophet Muhammad, a sacred religious figure whose representation is prohibited in Islam.

Turkey’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, condemned the drawing of Leman’s magazine as “shameless”, announcing that his editor in chief, graphic designer, institutional director and cartoonist had been arrested.

In a publication on the social media site X, Leman denied that his cartoon was a Muhammad cartoon, saying that “work does not refer to the prophet Muhammad in any way.”

The riot police were deployed in Istanbul on Monday when hundreds of people protested against the publication.

The protesters gathered outside the Leman offices singing slogans such as “tooth teeth, blood for blood, revenge, revenge.”

A correspondent from the Agite-Presse news agency (AFP) reported to have seen rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowd.

Turkey Minister of Justice said that the main public prosecutor’s office had initiated an investigation to “publicly insult religious values.”

“The cartoon or any form of visual representation of our prophet not only harms our religious values ​​but also damages social peace,” Yilmaz Tunc wrote in X.

“The necessary legal measures will be taken without delay” against Leman’s journalists, he added.

Yerlikaya also shared videos of the four employees arrested by the “vile drawing.”

Arrest orders for other members of the magazine’s senior management have also been issued.

The images of the cartoon have appeared on social networks, which show two characters floating in the sky over a city under siege.

One of the characters is shown in the photo that says “La Paz is with you, I am in Muhammad”, and the other answering: “Peace is with you, I am muse.”

Leman apologized with “well -intentioned readers who feel injured”, but defended their work and rejected accusations that the cartoon was a representation of Muhammad.

“The cartoonist wanted to portray the justice of the oppressed Muslim people representing a Muslim murdered by Israel, and he never intended to insult religious values,” he said in a statement in X.

“We do not accept the stain that gives us because there is no representation of our prophet. You must be very malicious to interpret the cartoon in this way.”

The editor in chief of Leman, Tuncay Akgun, who is currently in Paris, told AFP that the work had been misunderstood and that the magazine “would never risk.”

He added that the reaction comes from “similarities with Charlie Hebdo”, which is “very intentional and very worrying”, referring to the 2015 attack against the French satirical magazine after he published a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.

Charlie Hebdo’s offices were assaulted by armed men who killed 12 people and was one of the worst security crises in the history of France.