Turkey Raids Newspaper That Printed Charlie Hebdo, Islamist Threats Mount

Turkish authorities responded to the printing of Charlie Hebdo cartoons in the country by raiding the newspaper putting out the issue and blocking any website showing the Mohammed cover.

Cumhuriyet (The Republic) vowed that it will continue to “defend the freedom of expression” as it dedicated four of its pages to the French satirical paper’s content, not including in those pages the cover showing Mohammed holding a “Je suis Charlie” sign. The newspaper said there was significant internal debate over whether to include that image with the spread.

The paper has printed the cover in its pages, though. Two columnists have received threats for using the image with their pieces.

Police raided the plant where Cumhuriyet was being printed and stopped delivery trucks, inspecting the newspaper and relaying information about its contents back to prosecutors. The paper was eventually allowed to deliver the issues after the delay.

“It shouldn’t be like this,” editor-in-chief Utku Çakırözer told CNNi. “Free speech should be defended by the whole of society…. Prime Minister [Ahmet Davutoğlu] himself went to march for free speech in Paris last week.”

Turkish Islamists openly called for a raid of the newspaper on a Facebook event page with a flame backdrop and the vow, “We are tossing the rag.”

According to Agence France-Presse, Charlie Hebdo’s chief editor wanted a Turkish version because “Turkey is in a difficult period and secularity there is under attack.”

Gerard Biard stressed that the Turkish version is “the most important” of the five foreign-language versions.

France’s Libération newspaper reported that a team of about 10 translators volunteered from sundown Monday to sun-up Tuesday to craft Turkish-language puns.

Threats were directed at the newspaper from the moment of confirmation that it would stand in solidarity with the French satirists. Ankara Mayor Melih Gökçek, a member of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), stoked the flames by tweeting in all caps that the paper was about to commit a “serious provocation” and asking followers to spread the word. He also accused the newspaper of working with some foreign power and declared it a “game of the enemies of Islam.”

Supporters tweeted with the hashtag #JeSuisCumhuriyet. Islamists fired back with #ÜlkemdeCharlieHebdoDağıtılamaz (Charlie Hebdo cannot be distributed in my country).

“Those who disregard the sacred values of Muslims by publishing forms allegedly referring to our Prophet are clearly committing a provocation,” tweeted Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan.

A district court in Turkey then ordered that anyone displaying the cartoons was violating the human rights of sensitive Muslims, trumping the website or newspaper’s right to free expression.

Turkey’s three top satirical magazines, Leman, Penguen and Uykusuz, will run common covers on their new issues tomorrow: a black background with the speech bubble “Je suis Charlie.”

“We hope that this solidarity will bring some consolation. We condemn the armed terrorism targeting the cartoons. We wish for a world ruled by a language of peace in which freedom of thought isn’t oppressed and the media isn’t attacked,” the magazines said in a joint statement.

One of the pages Cumhuriyet printed included the cartoon of ISIS leader al-Baghdadi that was the last tweet from Charlie Hebdo before the massacre. Other cartoons also feature Islamists.

1 des 4 pages de Charlie Hebdo publiées en turc par le quotidien d’opposition Cumhuriyet pic.twitter.com/O669im59X7

— Gilles Klein (@GillesKLEIN) January 14, 2015