Erdogan Vows To PUNISH LeMan As Turkey BURNS Over Prophet's Cartoon
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NDTV
5 hours ago
- NDTV
'Remember Charlie Hebdo!' Protesters Seethe At Istanbul Magazine
Angry protesters rallied in Istanbul on Tuesday despite a heavy police presence, shouting threats following allegations a satirical magazine published a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. Unrest began late Monday after Istanbul's chief prosecutor ordered the arrest of staff at LeMan weekly saying it had published a cartoon that "publicly insulted religious values". LeMan categorically denied the allegation, with its editor-in-chief telling AFP the image had "nothing to do with the Prophet Mohammed". But news of the warrant brought an angry mob of hardline Islamist protesters onto the streets, who clashed with police late into the night, an AFP correspondent said. A group called Islamic Solidarity Platform called another protest Tuesday, prompting police to shut Taksim Square and Istiklal, the city's busy shopping thoroughfare. But they gathered anyway, with around 300 protesters shouted abuse and chanting "Don't forget Charlie Hebdo", referring to the 2015 attack on a Paris magazine when Islamist gunmen killed 12 people after it published caricatures lampooning the Prophet Mohammed. According to the correspondent, the protesters were far less aggressive than those who rallied on Monday night, when around 400 Islamist hardliners tried to storm a bar frequented by the magazine staff. "Down with secularism, long live sharia (law)! Jihad, jihad, martyrdom!" they shouted while clashing with police, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets. 'No Justification For Violence' Publication of the image drew sharp condemnation from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who denounced it as a "hate crime". "It is a clear provocation disguised as humour, a vile provocation," he railed, saying the authorities had confiscated all existing copies of the offending issue. Monday's violence drew sharp condemnation from Erol Onderoglu of Reporters Without Borders (RSF). "There is no justification for such violence, which we strongly condemn," he told AFP, saying it was "hard to understand" why police did not intervene sooner and that the "cartoonists' safety must take priority". Overnight, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya posted images of the cartoonist, LeMan's graphic designer, its publisher and another staff member being roughly dragged away under arrest, prompting a rebuke from Turkish rights group MLSA. "Detaining cartoonists and subjecting them to mistreatment under the accusation of 'insulting religious values' over a cartoon is unlawful," its co-director Veysel Ok wrote on X. The Istanbul Bar Association also denounced the arrests, saying: "Actions such as reverse handcuffing applied during detention, sharing of footage taken by forcibly bowing the head, and similar acts clearly violate the prohibition of ill-treatment." Statements on the matter by politicians and ministers had "undermined the presumption of innocence" and risked "influencing judicial independence", it said. And "aggressive actions and protests accompanied by slogans opposing the secular rule of law... under the guise of freedom of expression cannot be tolerated." 'Social Lynching' Copies of the disputed cartoon posted online show two winged characters with halos hovering in the skies over a city being bombed. "Salam aleikum, I'm Mohammed," says one shaking hands with the other who replies, "Aleikum salam, I'm Musa." Opposition leader Ozgur Ozel said he was shocked when he first heard the allegations but after looking at the image, said he quickly realised they were not true. "Take a proper look: I see an angel who died in a bombardment in Gaza, with a halo and wings who encounters another angel also killed by a bomb... (but) Mohammad is a prophet, not an angel," he said. "I will not allow any disrespect to the Prophet Mohammed, but I won't remain silent about a social lynching based on a non-existant disrespect." Speaking to AFP from Paris, LeMan editor-in-chief Tuncay Akgun said the image had been deliberately misinterpreted to cause provocation. "In this work, the name of a Muslim who was killed in Israel's bombardments is fictionalised as Mohammed," he said. "This cartoon is not a caricature of Prophet Mohammed in any way," he said, describing the arrest warrant as a "systematic provocation and attack" on the decades-old satirical magazine.
Time of India
5 hours ago
- Time of India
When Is UAE's next public holiday? Will Prophet Muhammad's birthday bring a long weekend?
UAE residents look forward to a potential three-day weekend this September for the Prophet Muhammad's birthday holiday/ Photo: pixabay After the recent three-day break for Islamic New Year, UAE residents are already looking forward to their next public holiday. The next official holiday is expected to be the birthday of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), observed during the Islamic month of Rabi' Al-Awwal. This day is widely celebrated across the country and will grant residents a one-day holiday. When Is the Prophet Muhammad's Birthday in 2025? According to the Islamic (Hijri) calendar, Rabi' Al-Awwal in 2025 is expected to begin on Sunday, August 24 and end on Monday, September 22, though the exact dates depend on moon sightings. The Islamic calendar is lunar-based, with each month beginning upon the sighting of the new moon. Since the Hijri year is about 11 days shorter than the Gregorian calendar year, Islamic dates shift earlier each year on the Gregorian calendar. If Rabi' Al-Awwal starts on August 24 (Sunday), then the birthday of Prophet Muhammad is expected to fall on Thursday, September 4, 2025. If the month begins a day later, on August 25 (Monday), then the Prophet's birthday will likely be on Friday, September 5, 2025. This means UAE residents are set to enjoy a potential three-day weekend, either from Thursday to Saturday or Friday to Sunday, when combined with the usual weekend days of Saturday and Sunday. New Rules on Holiday Scheduling in the UAE In early 2025, the UAE government introduced a resolution allowing for more flexibility in scheduling public holidays. According to this new law: Except for Eid breaks, all public holidays can be moved to the beginning or end of the workweek if they fall on a weekend. Such adjustments require approval from the UAE Cabinet. Individual Emirates' local governments may also announce additional holidays if deemed necessary. This policy was already applied during the Islamic New Year break, and it is expected that the same approach will be taken for the Prophet Muhammad's birthday holiday. This means the public holiday could be shifted to create a longer weekend, maximizing rest and leisure time for residents. What Does This Mean for Residents? The upcoming long weekend presents a welcome opportunity to plan for a short getaway or relaxation period. Early September is often considered a shoulder season for travel, offering attractive deals within the UAE and abroad. Whether residents prefer: A staycation at luxury hotels, A scenic mountain drive, Or a city break, the likely three-day weekend around the Prophet Muhammad's birthday is an ideal time to take advantage of some downtime.
The Print
7 hours ago
- The Print
Turkey's looking more like Pakistan every day. Blasphemy-obsessed, imprisoned by hatred
Though no one was killed in the violence, it is becoming clear that Turkey, once the progressive cultural powerhouse of the Middle East, is starting to look a little more like Pakistan each week. The country's septuagenarian ruler, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is even working to dismantle the constitution , which mandates that 'sacred religious feelings shall absolutely not be involved in state affairs and politics as required by the principle of secularism'. Earlier this week, police in Istanbul fired rubber bullets and tear gas into a mob seeking to attack a bar where staff of the magazine had retreated after the supposedly blasphemous cartoon went to print. The country's interior minister Ali Yerlikaya has promised legal action against the cartoonist, graphic designer, and editors of LeMan , vowing that 'these shameless individuals will be held accountable before the law'. The inferno lies below, a landscape made up of bombs, fire, and rubble. Their wings elevating them above the carnage, two angels—one bearing the name of the Prophet of Islam and the other of the Israelites—wish each other peace. The cartoon, published in the Turkish satirical magazine LeMan , is open to readings. Is it that those condemned to live in war can only discover their shared humanity after being liberated from life? Alternately, is it that the angels have abandoned their followers on earth, learning that piety cannot tame the savagery of the faithful? Extreme religious violence isn't unknown in Turkey. Thirty-seven people were burned to death in 1993 after mobs attacked a cultural festival of the Alevi sect, attended among others by the Turkish translator of Salman Rushdie's book, The Satanic Verses. The proscription of books, arrests of opposition leaders, and the repression of ethnic minorities have been an ugly feature of Turkey's republic. However, its social and cultural life remains highly sophisticated and liberal, and not just by the standards of the grim Middle East despotisms. Erdoğan's true legacy, the violence in Istanbul suggests, might be demolishing the foundations on which Turkey's pluralism has rested. Decline of the republic Kemal Atatürk's epoch-defining construction of republican Turkey from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire aimed to create a new civilisation that could negotiate the industrial world. The religious orders that wielded enormous influence in the imperial era were closed down in 1925. Far-reaching reforms were introduced on how men and women ought to dress, including the rejection of the traditional Fez cap and encouraging women to give up the Peçe (headscarf) and Çarşaf (a loose-fitting outer garment). In 1928, the Latin alphabet replaced the Arabic script, a tool to demolish the power of the clerical class. The same year, Islam was removed as the state religion. For Atatürk, it seemed that the reconstruction of Islam itself was necessary. So he established the Presidency of Religious Affairs to oversee religious affairs. The clergy were transformed into state employees, responsible for delivering sermons dictated by the authorities. Imams were ordered to allow musical instruments into mosques, and failing that, were provided with gramophones and records. Even the wearing of shoes inside mosques was encouraged. This state-enforced religion, scholar Nevzet Çelik noted in a thoughtful essay, brought about enormous transformation—but it also stifled the organic evolution of civic life and marked secularism with the taint of authoritarianism. As Atatürk's legacy faded, and Turkey became more shaped by Cold War anticommunism, religion became a language of protest for the peasantry and bourgeoisie. According to historian David Tonge, from 1980 onward, things began to come to a head. The faltering economy fed communal tensions. Fifty died in massacres in Çorum, where Turkish ultranationalists attacked Alevis. As Left-wing groups battled fascists on the streets, the fights claimed dozens of lives every day. The opposition politician Necmettin Erbakan used Islam to attack Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, calling for Turkey to be made an Islamic State. The military stepped in to end the chaos: Turkey woke up on 12 September 1980 to find itself under military rule. To some, this seemed just a passing phase. The country had, after all, been subjected to coups in 1960 and 1971. The Generals hadn't even troubled themselves to send out the tanks the second time, simply sending a memorandum to the parliament. Also read: Pakistan suffers violence of its own making. West's refusal to learn is even more tragic A change of destiny Led by General Kenan Evren, the National Security Council realised it needed to come to terms with the social forces sweeping Turkey. Though secularism continued to be promoted as a guiding principle, religious education was reintroduced in primary and secondary schools. The government of Prime Minister Turgut Özal, which was elected in 1983, also instrumentalised religion. His education minister Vehbi Dinçerler banned the teaching of evolution and instructed clerical schools to teach that Turks had been 'leaders in the rise and dissemination of Islam throughout the world'. Later, Özal became the first Prime Minister of Turkey to make the Hajj pilgrimage while in office, leading a delegation of several hundred Members of Parliament and senior civil servants. The opposition media, Tonge writes, savaged Özal, publishing pictures of him in his white, ritual ihram towels, contrasted with his wife in a cocktail dress, smoking one of her trademark cigars. Erbakan's rise to power in 1996 marked a further shift in political direction away from secularism. His first trip abroad was to Tehran, in defiance of the United States, and then to Libya. He also tried to launch a D8 group of Muslim nations, as an alternative to the West's G7 group of economically developed countries. The ban on female civil servants wearing the headscarf was removed. The Generals, concerned, presented Erbakan with 18 directives, 10 of which concerned the defence of secularism. Then, in April, the military declared reactionary Islam to be more dangerous to Turkey than Kurdish secessionists, or even wars. Television stations, radio broadcasters, and newspapers considered sympathetic to the Islamists were shut down. Also read: Chinese J-20 isn't just a fighter jet—it's a signal to US, Japan and India European departure From 1999, the European Union sought to stabilise its eastern frontiers by drawing Turkey into the transnational body. The demands for civil liberties and freedoms that were now placed on Turkey's military gutted the institution. Led by Erdoğan, the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) or Justice and Development Party, was founded in 2001, bringing together a disparate coalition of Islamists. To the world, however, the AKP presented itself as a pro-West, reformist, moderate, and neoliberal party. Europe and the United States bought the story. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared that the AKP was 'a government dedicated to pulling Turkey westward toward Europe'. President Barack Obama gushed about 'a model partnership' with Turkey. Erdoğan has also used the same language about Trump. The practice of AKP power, however, proved to be at odds with this image. For one, as the party faced growing competition from its rivals, it made increasing use of religion. 'Those with greater commitments to liberal democratic norms carried greater weight at the outset, only to lose their power and influence to electoralists,' political scientist Sebnem Gumuscu wrote in her book, Democracy or Authoritarianism. The signs of Erdoğan's commitment to Islamism became increasingly evident. The new school curriculum introduced in 2017 led to the removal of the theory of evolution and increased emphasis on religious values. The word 'jihad' was included as an essential part of Islam. And then, a year short of the centennial of the founding of the republic, he opened the Hagia Sofiya church for Islamic prayers, reversing Atatürk's decision to turn it into a museum, equally shared between the country's faiths. Erdoğan's beliefs are increasingly evident beyond Turkey's borders, too. The new regime in Syria has embraced Sharia as the basis of its laws, just as Erdoğan seeks in his homeland. He has also been accused of complicity in the killings of religious minorities. The rioting over the LeMan cartoon signals the rise of Turkey, diminished by its obsession with greatness, but a prisoner of resentment and hatred. This smaller, meaner Turkey, of the blasphemy rioter and sectarian killer, will be Erdoğan's legacy. Praveen Swami is Contributing Editor at ThePrint. His X handle is @praveenswami. Views are personal. (Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
