Islamist protesters clash with Turkish anti riot police as they gather to protests against LeMan cartoon magazine in Istanbul on June 30, 2025.
Ozan Köse / AFP
On June 26th, the Turkish satirical magazine LeMan published a cartoon that featured a city that appears to be Gaza. Islamists interpreted the figure of Mohammed in the cartoon to be Islam’s prophet Mohammed. In response, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s regime and the country’s Islamists have started a witch hunt by arresting four employees of the magazine, including its editor-in-chief and the cartoonist, with a seizure order of the issue in which the cartoon was featured.
Istanbul’s Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office launched a judicial investigation into the magazine on the grounds that it “denigrated religious values.” An investigation was also launched into the magazine’s managers’ finances.
The cartoon in question depicts two people in the sky, identifying themselves as Mohammad and Moses while missiles rain down on buildings. One of the characters, Mohammad, says in Arabic, “Salaam alaikum (Peace be upon you), I am Mohammad,” to which Moses replies with the same phrase in Hebrew, “Shalom aleichem, I am Moses.”
Turkish government officials condemned the magazine in unison.
Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc announced on X:
An investigation has been initiated by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office under Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code for the crime of “publicly insulting religious values” regarding the caricature of our Prophet drawn by a humor magazine.
No freedom grants the right to mock the sacred values of a faith in an offensive manner. The caricaturing or any attempt to visually represent our Prophet harms not only our religious values but also societal peace. The necessary legal steps will be taken without delay against this provocative attempt that disregards the beliefs of millions of Muslims.
The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Zafer Aknar, graphic designer Cebrail Okçu, cartoonist Doğan Pehlevan, and the magazine’s manager Ali Yavuz were then arrested and jailed.
In his defence at the court room, Pehlevan described his cartoon as “a peaceful cartoon about people who died on all sides, including during the Iran war.” He said that he used the two names to generally represent Muslims and Jews. He said, in part:
The names Mohammad and Moses are popular names used a lot in these societies… Also, if we are going to talk about the prophet, [his titles] should be “Hazrati” (His Holiness) or SAV (“Sallallahu Alayhi Wa Sallam/Peace be upon him”) so that it becomes obvious that it is the prophet that is being referred to. I thought it was a very cheerful and loving cartoon. I did not associate it with today’s events at all. I have been drawing in Turkey for years, and the first rule we learned in drawing is not to get into religious topics, and not to make fun of religion.”
Meanwhile, on June 30th, a group of Muslims gathered in front of LeMan’s office in Istanbul, screaming “allahu akbar,” attacked the building, and the people around it (including those who were passing by or sitting at cafés).
The attack was reportedly led by an association affiliated with an Islamic militant group called the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders’ Front (IBDA-C). IBDA-C is an armed organization that aims to abolish the secular constitution of Turkey and establish a Sunni Islamic federate state in the Middle East.
The association’s Istanbul chairman Alper Kaan Aykut, in his statement outside the magazine’s office, said:
This is Muslim Anatolian land. Everyone should remember this: Either we will leave, or they [the magazine employees] will leave. Either they will die, or we will die. The messenger of Allah [Mohammed] is more valuable to us than our lives and our property. For his light, we are ready to give our lives and take lives!
In another post, the crowd in front of LeMan were heard chanting, “A tooth for a tooth, blood for blood, revenge, revenge!”
Although riot police contained the angry mob and did not allow the violence to escalate, the Ankara government’s position does not substantially differ from that of the radical Islamists. Turkey’s Minister of the Interior Ali Yerlikaya posted on X videos that showed the arrest of the cartoonist and the graphic designer of LeMan, saying:
I once again curse those who try to sow seeds of hypocrisy by making caricatures of our Prophet (PBUH). The person named D.P. who made this vile drawing has been caught and taken into custody. I repeat once again: These shameless individuals will be held accountable before the law.
Following the detention decisions, LeMan announced on X that the cartoon does not depict Islam’s prophet Mohammed but rather a random Mohammed from the Muslim world, and even made it clear they meant to denounce Israel:
Here, the cartoonist wanted to portray the righteousness of the oppressed Muslim people by depicting a Muslim killed by Israel, and he never intended to denigrate religious values. We do not accept the stain that has been cast upon us, because there is no depiction of our Prophet. One must be very malicious to interpret the cartoon in this way.
The third paragraph of Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code criminalizes the public denigration of religious values embraced by a segment of the population, and provides for a prison sentence of 6 months to 1 year if this act is likely to disrupt public peace.
It is worth underscoring that the cartoon in question effectively blames Israel for the ongoing war in Gaza, and fails to reference in any way Hamas’ invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, which started the war. Although Hamas terrorists murdered, burned civilians alive, and tortured around 1,200 people, took around 250 people hostage, the satirical magazine never posted cartoons of the plight of the tortured Israeli and non-Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Yet, ironically, the cartoonist would not be arrested in Israel, a country which respects freedom of expression, including artistic expression with dissident views. As opposed to that, Turkish government officials seem to loathe the idea of the freedom to debate, to criticise and even mock religious or ideological beliefs, all integral part of free speech, essential cultural elements that make a society democratic and civilised.
Meanwhile, Turkish media often publishes incendiary reports against religious minorities, particularly Christians and Jews, but no legal action is ever taken against them.
Although Turkey has a secular constitution, Islam dominates political culture. All other religions are considered inferior, including those that are indigenous to the land that is today Turkey. Christians and Jews only comprise approximately 0,1% of Turkey’s entire population, while the Yazidis are on the verge of extinction and Alevis are not even officially recognised by the government.
The way the Turkish government and the judiciary system reacted to a simple cartoon is yet another incident that questions whether Turkey is worthy of being a NATO member or an EU candidate.
