The heart of Istanbul was completed by the police on Tuesday morning, around Taksim Square and the popular Istiklal shopping avenue. Any officially prohibited gathering.
Some 300 people gathered in and around the Taksim mosque denounced the drawing published in the Leman opposition review with cries of “Leman, bastard, do not forget Charlie Hebdo“AFP journalists have noted.
An explicit and threatening reference to the jihadist attacks against the French satirical weekly on January 7, 2015, which had decimated the editorial staff, killing 12 and 11 injured.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in turn denounced one “infamous provocation“Under the guise of humor, in a speech at midday. Evoking”a crime of clothes“He assured that”Those who are insolent towards our prophet […] will be held responsible before the law“.
At this stage, four employees of the magazine, including the caricaturist author of the drawing in question, were arrested on the six aims by arrest mandates, for having published a drawing which “openly denigrates religious values“.
Joined by AFP, the editor -in -chief of the magazine, Tuncay Akgun, traveling abroad, denied any malicious intention.
“This drawing is in no way a caricature of the prophet Muhammad“, He said, arguing that the character is a Muslim killed in Gaza in the bombing of Israel.
“He was called Mohammed, it is a fiction. More than 200 million people around the Islamic world are called Mohammed“.
