Police raided the Istanbul offices of LeMan Monday evening and detained the staff members after the publication of what officials claimed was a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, a depiction that is forbidden in the Muslim world. At the same time, a mob laid siege to the building and the surrounding area in Beyoğlu District, chanting pro-shariah law slogans. 

Istanbul prosecutors are investigating six people from the LeMan staff for “publicly demeaning religious values.” Four of the staffers are in custody and two others are wanted but are reportedly not in the country. 

The cartoon, published in the latest edition of the weekly, depicts two men with wings on their backs meeting over the skies of a city being bombed. They greet each other by saying “Assalamu alaikum, I’m Muhammad,” and “Aleichem shalom, I’m Moses,” as they shake hands. LeMan said on X that the man in the cartoon is not the prophet but instead a Muslim man named Muhammad. 

“Turkish authorities shouldn’t fan the flames of religious backlash over a cartoon that LeMan magazine said was not portraying the Islamic prophet,” said Özgür Öğret, CPJ’s Turkey representative. “The authorities should release the four LeMan staff in custody, cancel the warrants for those abroad, and focus on ensuring their safety.”

Prior depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in cartoons have led to lethal violence and death threats against journalists.

The detained include Doğan Pehlivan, the cartoonist; Cebrail Okçu, graphic designer; Zafer Aknar, news editor; and Ali Yavuz, institutional manager. Tuncay Akgün, the chief editor and publisher, and news editor Aslan Özdemir were also wanted by the authorities. 

Turkish authorities banned the distribution of the latest edition of LeMan and ordered copies to be pulled from newsstands. A court ordered that LeMan’s website and X account be blocked within Turkey.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkey’s cabinet members welcomed the operation in public comments. Some opposition leaders also criticized the cartoon. 

CPJ’s emailed request for comment from the chief prosecutor’s office in Istanbul did not receive a reply.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

An Istanbul court arrested Toktas on January 26 after pro-opposition Halk TV broadcast a conversation between its journalist Barış Pehlivan and an expert financial witness. The court said Halk TV had secretly recorded the two men’s telephone conversation and it had publicly named the witness to put pressure on him. Four other Halk TV staff were placed under judicial control and banned from foreign travel.

“Suat Toktaş and his four Halk TV colleagues must not be jailed for airing an interview that the government disagreed with. The public deserve to hear all sides of this story, which is of national importance and involves a top Turkish politician,” said Özgür Öğret, CPJ’s Turkey representative. “Authorities should immediately halt their prosecution of Halk TV and instead take a positive step towards improving Turkey’s dismal press freedom record.”

Pehlivan’s interview took place after Istanbul’s opposition Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu hosted a news conference where he named the witness, who he alleged had filed biased reports in numerous politically motivated lawsuits against opposition-controlled municipalities. The witness told Pehlivan that the mayor’s allegations were false.

The interview was aired on a program hosted by Seda Selek, with Serhan Asker as director and Kürşad Oğuz as program coordinator.

All five journalists were charged with violating the privacy of communication through the press and influencing those performing judicial duties, a crime for which the prosecution has requested up to nine years in prison. Pehlivan and Oğuz face an additional charge of recording non-public conversations between individuals and could be jailed for up to 14 years, according to the indictment, reviewed by CPJ.

CPJ’s email to Istanbul’s chief prosecutor requesting comment did not receive a response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Pehlivan, a columnist for the pro-opposition daily Cumhuriyet, revealed in an August 2 column that he was ordered to report back to prison no later than August 15 to serve eight months of a 2020 sentence for violating the country’s national intelligence laws.

In March 2020, Turkish authorities arrested Pehlivan, then chief editor of independent news website Odatv, along with five other journalists over their coverage of the death of a Turkish intelligence officer in Libya. Pehlivan and four other journalists were found guilty of violating national intelligence laws in September 2020; that month, Pehlivan was released on parole after having served six months.

“Barış Pehlivan did not deserve to be imprisoned over his reporting three years ago, and he definitely does not deserve to lose eight more months of his life behind bars,” said Özgür Öğret, CPJ’s Turkey representative. “Turkish authorities must stop arresting members of the press and instead provide a safe environment where journalists can do their job without fear of judicial retaliation.”

In the 2020 case, Pehlivan was initially sentenced to three years and nine months in prison; due to Turkish sentencing laws, his term has been reduced so that eight months remain.

In his August 2 column about the order to return to prison, Pehlivan said the authorities considered him in violation of his parole due to separate charges prosecutors filed against him and another journalist in 2022 for allegedly “making targets of those who are tasked to combat terrorism,” an accusation of exposing information that would harm an official.

On Monday, August 7, Pehlivan’s lawyers filed an appeal for him to remain released under judicial control, which would allow him to stay out of prison but would ban him from traveling and require him to report to police, according to news reports.

On Wednesday, CPJ joined 18 other press freedom, freedom of expression, and human rights organizations as signatories of a joint statement urging Turkish authorities not to re-imprison Pehlivan and to stop the “systematic judicial harassment” against journalists. 

CPJ emailed the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office for comment but did not receive any reply. At the time of CPJ’s latest prison census, on December 1, 2022, at least 40 journalists were imprisoned in Turkey.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.