[ad_1]
Vendors in the Arab quarter of Jerusalem put up a poster against Macron. PHOTO: Reuters
SINCEa cartoon chained to the Turkish president graced the cover of the new issue of the French satirical publication Charlie Hebdo. The main character is Recep Tayyip Erdogan, depicted in shorts and a T-shirt drinking beer from a mug and lifting the skirt of a veiled woman, exposing her bare buttocks. The cartoon is titled: “Erdogan, it’s a lot of fun in private.”
Turkey will take the necessary judicial and diplomatic measures in response to the cartoon, the communications direction of the Turkish presidency said, citing Reuters. Top Turkish officials have condemned the image, describing it as “a disgusting attempt to spread racism and cultural hatred.”
Turkish prosecutors have launched an investigation into the leaders of Charlie Hebdo.
Erdogan himself said that hostility towards Islam and Muslims is growing like a cancer among European rulers, the Anatolian Agency reported. Regarding the cartoon, he said that he did not even look at it.
However, regarding the insulting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, Erdogan commented that it is a matter of dignity for Turkey to face these attacks. According to him, what is happening is a sign of the “return of Europe to the period of barbarism.”
The Turkish president is among the most active participants in the wave of anger that has erupted in Muslim countries after French authorities defended a teacher beheaded by a Chechen man in Paris for showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Turkey and other countries have called for a boycott of French products.
Islam forbade images of Muhammad, and the way he was portrayed in the French edition was considered particularly provocative. Erdogan accused French President Emmanuel Macron of encouraging Islamophobia by allowing Mohammed cartoons to be published.
Macron, for his part, defended freedom of expression at the funeral of teacher Samuel Patti, who was beheaded by an extremist after showing some of the cartoons to his students during a lesson on freedom of expression.
[ad_2]
