By Diana George
Four employees of Turkey’s satirical magazine LeMan have been arrested over a cartoon that allegedly depicts the Prophet Muhammad — a sacred figure in Islam whose visual representation is strictly prohibited. Turkey’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya called the cartoon “shameless” and confirmed the arrest of the magazine’s editor-in-chief, graphic designer, institutional director, and cartoonist. He also shared footage of the arrests, describing the cartoon as a “vile drawing”. Arrest warrants have reportedly been issued for other senior members of the publication. The cartoon, which circulated on social media, shows two winged characters floating above a city under siege. One character says, “Peace be upon you, I’m Muhammed,” to which the other replies, “Peace be upon you, I’m Musa.” As tensions escalated, riot police were deployed in Istanbul on Monday, where hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside LeMan’s offices. Protesters were seen chanting slogans including “tooth for tooth, blood for blood, revenge, revenge”. According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), rubber bullets and tear gas were used to disperse the crowd. Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunç said an official investigation had been launched for “publicly insulting religious values”. Writing on social media platform X, he stated, “The caricature or any form of visual representation of our Prophet not only harms our religious values but also damages societal peace.” He added that “necessary legal steps will be taken without delay” against the journalists involved. Responding to the backlash, LeMan denied that the cartoon was a depiction of the Prophet. “The work does not refer to the Prophet Muhammed in any way,” the magazine said in a statement on X. The magazine apologised to “well-intentioned readers who feel hurt” but defended its intentions, saying: “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.” “We do not accept the stain that is cast on us because there is no depiction of our Prophet. You have to be very malicious to interpret the cartoon in this way,” the statement added. Tuncay Akgün, LeMan’s editor-in-chief currently in Paris, told AFP the cartoon had been misinterpreted and said the magazine would “never take such a risk”. He added that the backlash draws “similarities with Charlie Hebdo”, which is “very intentional and very worrying”, referring to the 2015 attack on the French satirical magazine that left 12 dead after it published a caricature of Prophet Muhammad.