Turkish journalist briefly detained for sharing cartoon on religion

A top Turkish opposition daily’s columnist, who posted a tweet of a cartoon depicting a cleaner appearing to disinfect a religious cleric’s mind, was briefly detained on Wednesday.

Cumhuriyet journalist Enver Aysever could face a one-and-half-year imprisonment after Turkish prosecutors charged him over his tweet, dating from 2020, that it “denigrated religious values observed by a part of the public.”

The cartoon showed a cleaner, dressed in white protective overalls, spraying disinfectant into the cracked-open head of a heavily bearded man who appeared to represent conservative Muslims in Turkey.

Aysever was brought and questioned by the police on Wednesday and later released, Cumhuriyet said.

The paper quoted the journalist as saying “they do this on purpose to taint my reputation and put an end to my columns in Cumhuriyet,” after his release.

Defending the journalist, Canan Kaftancioglu, the Istanbul chairwoman of the main opposition CHP party, tweeted that “under the (ruling) AKP government, humor … has been banned.”

Seeing many of its journalists land in court, Turkey’s oldest daily, Cumhuriyet was founded in 1924 and is considered a thorn in the side of President Recep Tayyip Erodgan’s government.

The paper is owned by a foundation that ensures its independence, making it one of Turkey’s few media outlets not subservient to big industrial holding companies close to Erdogan.

Cumhuriyet riled Turkish officials in 2015 by reproducing a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad in the wake of the deadly attack on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

Turkey is one of the world’s leading jailer of journalists, ranking 154th in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).