In Türkiye, the last magazine of political caricatures attacked from all sides after a controversial drawing

A designer and magazine officials are under the locks, accused of having lacked respect for the Prophet.

Satirical magazine Leman is accused of having caricatured the Prophet, which the author of the incriminated drawing defend themselves and three officials of the newspaper, all today under the locks. The drawing shows two characters represented in angels who are found in heaven. “Salam Aleykoum, I’m Mohamed”said one. “Aleyhem Shalom, I am Moses”answers the second. Below them, a city crushed by the bombs. Dogan Pehlevan, the cartoonist, explains that he wanted “Underline the absurdity of war, show that souls can get along”Before asking: “But you have to be dead to realize it ? “”

The designer was imprisoned for public insults with religious values ​​as well as three newspaper managers: the director of management control, the graphic designer and the editorial director, violently arrested. A video published by the Minister of the Interior shows in particular the editor -in -chief placed on the ground at home and dragged barefoot in the street before being taken. Two other arrest warrants were issued, against the founder and editor -in -chief today abroad and another journalist. President Erdogan did not wait for the end of the investigation to castigate a “infamous provocation”,, “A crime of hatred which the authors will have to account for having lacked respect for the Prophet”. Suffice to say that they are already condemned.

As of Monday evening, clashes broke out in front of the newspaper premises, which was burned by Islamists calling for Sharia law. Then the next day, it was in front of the mosque of the Taksim square, normally prohibited for any demonstration, that the most radical yelled their hatred of the magazine: “Leman Salaudsthey have notably shouted, Remember Charlie Hebdo “. A reference to the massacre committed in the premises of the Parisian magazine in January 2015.

“During my long career as a cartoonist I faced dozens of attacks like this. I have been a caricaturist for 45 years. But I have never experienced something so terrible, so violentdeplore the founder of LemanTuncay Akgun. Because they instrumentalize us in their struggle to stay in power. They terrorize us and put our lives in danger. And, in addition to that, they do it by manipulating a caricature in total bad faith. Our work is extremely sensitive. We exercise it in already very difficult conditions. “

“It should not have been the price to pay. We are extremely sad. In fact it is an understatement: our hearts are in a thousand pieces.”

His magazine is also the subject of a financial survey, the power seeing the hand of the foreigner. Actually Leman is very critical of President Erdogan’s AKP and in the viewfinder of Trolls close to power for a long time. It took this very tenuous pretext to silence it. The designer was also also charged to insult the president.