Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday joined members of his government in condemning a recent cartoon published by the satirical LeMan magazine, calling it a “despicable provocation” and an “open incitement” disguised as humor.
The magazine came under fire in Turkey on Monday evening due to its June 26 edition, which allegedly featured a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, a claim the magazine denies.
The drawing showed two elderly figures, one labeled “Muhammad” and the other “Moses,” shaking hands mid-air above a war zone. According to LeMan, the cartoon was intended as a symbolic anti-war message, not as a depiction of the Prophet.
Erdoğan said in a post on X on Tuesday that the cartoon amounted to hate speech and that law enforcement and the judiciary had already launched investigations. “Those who act with such insolence will answer for it in court,” he said. “We will closely follow this process.”
The İstanbul’s chief prosecutor ordered the detention of several of LeMan’s senior staff on allegations of “publicly insulting religious values” on Monday evening, leading to the detention of four employees in ways that attracted anger from human rights advocates for violating the presumption of innocence and freedom of the press.
Video footage showed LeMan staff being detained at night, barefoot, with their hands cuffed behind their backs and dragged down stairs by police.
Calling on young people to remain calm, Erdoğan also added: “No one in this country will be allowed to insult our sacred values on any pretext. I ask our youth not to let anger cloud their judgment.”
Riot police were deployed in İstanbul on Monday as hundreds of people protested against the publication.
The magazine categorically denied the allegation, with its editor-in-chief telling Agence France-Presse that the image had “nothing to do with the Prophet Muhammad.”
LeMan also apologized to “well-intentioned readers who feel hurt” but defended its work and rejected allegations that the cartoon was a depiction of Muhammad.
“The cartoonist wanted to portray the righteousness of the oppressed Muslim people by depicting a Muslim killed by Israel, and he never intended to insult religious values,” it said in a statement on X.
Other top government officials also quickly condemned the cartoon, framing it as blasphemy. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya called the drawing “vile” and those responsible “shameless,” repeatedly declaring they “will pay before the law.”
Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç backed the legal proceedings, citing Article 216/3 of the Turkish Penal Code, which criminalizes “openly insulting religious values.”
Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun called the cartoon an “immoral provocation” and warned that Turkey “will not allow such attacks on our values.”
Although there is no ban on it in the Islamic holy book, the Quran, the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad is deemed highly offensive by most Muslims. This prohibition stems from a broader Islamic discouragement of visual representations of living beings, especially prophets, to prevent idolatry and to maintain reverence for Allah and his messengers.
