Charlie Hebdo sparks Turkish anger over Erdogan cartoon

The cartoon shows Turkish President Erdogan in a t-shirt and underpants, drinking a can of beer and lifting up the skirt of a woman wearing a hijab to reveal her naked bottom.

This is how the Wednesday cover of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo appeared, under the title: "Erdogan: in private, he's very funny".

Turkish anger over the cartoon has only added fuel to the dispute between France and Turkey over the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, which erupted after Professor Samuel Paty was beheaded by a young Islamist radical. 

Paty had shown the cartoons to the magazine's students in a class on free speech.

In an exercise of freedom, the magazine has exercised one of the fundamental pillars of liberal democracies: freedom of expression. Macron vowed that France would stick to its secular traditions and laws guaranteeing freedom of speech which allow publications such as the virulently anti-religion Charlie Hebdo to produce cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

 Senior Turkish officials on Wednesday condemned a cartoon contemptuous of President Tayyip Erdogan in the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, calling it a “disgusting effort” to “spread cultural racism and hatred”.

“We strongly condemn the publication of our president in the French magazine which does not respect any belief, sanctity and values,” President Ibrahim Kalin’s spokesperson wrote on Twitter. “They are only showing their own vulgarity and immorality. An attack on personal rights is not humor and free speech,” he said.

 Turkish Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun said “Macron’s anti-Muslim agenda is bearing fruit!” “We condemn this publication’s most disgusting effort to spread its cultural racism and hatred,” Altun wrote on Twitter.
 

According to the Turkish news agency Anadolu Agency, the Turkish public prosecutor's office will start an investigation against the French satirical magazine because of the caricature of President Erdogan. 

This is not the first time that Erdogan takes legal action against his critics in Europe. He filed a case in 2016 against German TV comedian Jan Boehmermann, who read aloud a deliberately defamatory poem about the Turkish leader during his programme as part of a parody designed to illustrate the limits of freedom of expression. 

The dispute put Merkel in the uncomfortable position of signing a criminal case against the comic under an archaic lese majeste law that was later removed from the German legal code.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Turks to boycott French goods amid a row over France's tougher stance on radical Islam
 
The law would prevent the radicalisation of the most vulnerable communities, according to the French president. "Radical Islamism, by creating laws above those that currently exist in the country, is a danger for France because sometimes it translates into a counter-society," Macron said.

The controversial bill includes:  stricter monitoring of sports organisations and other associations so that they do not become a front for Islamist teaching; an end to the system of imams being sent to France from abroad; improved oversight of the financing of mosques; and home-schooling restricted.

Erdogan harshly criticised Macron over the weekend, saying the French leader needed a mental health check-up, which led France to withdraw its ambassador from Ankara. 
 

The Turkish boycott has been joined by countries like Iran, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In Qatar, the distribution chains Al-Meera and Suq al-Baladi announced that they would "withdraw" French products from their shops. The Islamic Cooperation Organisation also criticised "the statements made by some French leaders (...) which could damage Franco-Muslim relations". 

France's European partners came to Macron's defence. Earlier Tuesday, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte had come to the defence of his country's far-right politician Geert Wilders after Erdogan brought legal action against him.

Wilders had shared a cartoon of the Turkish president wearing an Ottoman hat shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse on Twitter.

"I have a message for President Erdogan and that message is simple: in the Netherlands, freedom of expression is one of our highest values," said Rutte. 

Previously, European leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel had defended Macron after Erdogan suggested he needed "mental checks".

 "They are defamatory comments that are completely unacceptable, particularly against the backdrop of the horrific murder of the French teacher Samuel Paty by an Islamist fanatic," German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said.