The Turkish police on Monday detained four staff members and editors at one Turkey’s top satirical magazines for publishing a cartoon that allegedly depicted Prophet Muhammad, Agence France-Presse reported.
“The chief public prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation into the publication of a cartoon in the June 26 issue of Leman magazine that openly disparages religious values, and arrest warrants have been issued for those involved,” a statement from the İstanbul’s chief prosecutor said on Monday.
A copy of the black-and-white image posted on social media appeared to show the Prophet Muhammad, Islam’s most revered figure, and Moses introducing themselves and shaking hands in the skies over a city under bombardment.
As the news broke, several dozen angry protesters attacked a bar often frequented by Leman staffers in downtown İstanbul, provoking angry scuffles with police trying to stop them.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said police had detained the cartoonist responsible for the image, posting footage on X of him being detained in a stairwell.
“The person named D.P. who made this vile drawing has been caught and taken into custody,” he wrote, saying: “These shameless individuals will be held accountable before the law.”
Yerlikaya said the three others detained were a graphic designer, Leman’s managing editor and its company manager.
The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Tuncay Akgün, 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.”
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, Yılmaz Tunç, said an investigation had been opened on grounds of “publicly insulting religious values.”
Turkey is a predominantly Muslim but officially secular state, although investigations into popular figures are common due to their comments about Islam, Islamic law or the Prophet Muhammad.
