Erdogan’s office vowed to take “legal and diplomatic action.”
Istanbul:
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed outrage on Wednesday over a “disgusting” cartoon in the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo that shows him looking up a woman’s skirt while drinking beer in his boxer shorts.
Erdogan’s office promised to take “legal and diplomatic action,” while Turkish television NTV said Ankara had also summoned the second-highest-ranking diplomat to the French embassy to express its “strong condemnation.”
Under normal circumstances, the French ambassador would have been summoned, but he has been called to Paris for consultations in a further sign of the deterioration in diplomatic relations between the two NATO allies.
The Charlie Hebdo cover cartoon appeared just days after Erdogan called for a boycott of French products and questioned the sanity of President Emmanuel Macron to promote a campaign against Islamic extremism.
Macron’s defense of the media’s right to mock religion, as exemplified by Charlie Hebdo’s blasphemous cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, has sparked angry protests in Turkey and on swaths of the Muslim world.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday became the latest Islamic figure to criticize the French president, saying his defense of the prophet’s cartoons was a “stupid act” and an “insult” to those who voted for the.
“Ask (Macron) why he supports insulting God’s messenger in the name of freedom of expression. Does freedom of speech mean insulting, especially a holy person?” Khamenei said in a message to “French youth” on his official website.
Erdogan said he had not personally seen the Charlie Hebdo cartoon because he did not want to “give credit to such immoral posts.”
“I don’t need to say anything to those scoundrels who insult my beloved prophet on such a scale,” Erdogan said in a speech to his party lawmakers.
“I am saddened and frustrated not by this disgusting attack on me personally, but by the impertinence of targeting our prophet whom we love more than ourselves.”
Turkey is a predominantly Muslim but officially secular country that has taken a more conservative and nationalist tack under Erdogan.
‘Vicious and ugly’
Macron’s defense of Charlie Hebdo’s right to publish drawings of the prophet, which is banned by Islam, came after the brutal murder on October 16 of a school teacher who had shown cartoons to students during a class discussion about freedom of expression.
The magazine was also targeted by jihadists in a 2015 massacre that killed 12 people, including some of its most famous cartoonists.
Turkish officials accuse Macron of unfairly attacking Muslims and cultivating a culture that encourages Charlie Hebdo to use his right to offend.
Over the past week, protests and rallies have been held in many Muslim-majority countries to denounce Macron.
Tens of thousands marched through the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on Tuesday.
In Syria, protesters burned images of Macron and French flags, while others demonstrated in the Indian city of Mumbai and parts of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
“If the statesmen of Europe want peace and stability in their countries, they must honor the dignity of Muslims, respecting their values,” protester Ozgur Bursali said at a rally outside the French embassy in the Turkish capital, Ankara.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan wrote to Muslim country leaders on Wednesday calling on them to act together against Islamophobia, while a major Kuwaiti supermarket chain said most of its stores had stripped their shelves of French goods.
EU sanctions?
But Macron has been staunchly championed by other European leaders and won India’s support on Wednesday under Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“We deeply deplore the personal attacks in unacceptable language against President Emmanuel Macron in violation of the most basic standards of international speech,” said a statement from the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
French government spokesman Gabriel Attal said his country “will never renounce its principles and values” regarding press freedom and the fight against Islamic extremism.
France officially shut down a group called Barakacity on Wednesday that it blames for inciting hatred and justifying terrorist acts.
Erdogan’s policies have increasingly put Turkey at odds with the European Union and Macron has become one of the most vocal critics of the Turkish leader.
The two statesmen have clashed in the eastern Mediterranean, as well as in Turkey’s policies in the Middle East and, more recently, in the war between Azerbaijani and Armenian separatist forces in Nagorno-Karabakh.
French European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune said Paris “will push for strong European responses, including sanctions” for Erdogan’s series of “provocations.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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