Turkish President Regepay Taipei Erdogan appears in a caricature on the cover of the latest issue of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and this caricature has already provoked sharp condemnation from official Ankara.
In the cartoon, Erdogan sits in a chair and lifts a woman’s skirt, exposing her backside. The cartoon is signed “Erdogan – he is very hilarious in private”.
The new Charlie Hebdo room came out on Wednesday.
Senior Turkish officials have already condemned Erdogan’s cartoon.
“We categorically condemn the publication of our president in a French edition that has no respect for any faith, holiness and values,” Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Twitter.
“These are just testimonies to their own vulgarity and immorality. An attack on a person’s rights is not humor or freedom of expression,” he added.
Fahretin Altun, head of communications at Erdogan’s office, said on Twitter that “[Francijas prezidenta Emanuela] Macro ‘s anti – Muslim agenda is bearing fruit “.
“We condemn this publication’s futile efforts to spread its cultural racism and hatred,” Altun said.
The Turkish President’s Office has already promised to respond decisively in a statement.
“We assure our people that the necessary legal and diplomatic steps will be taken against this cartoon,” Erdogan said in a statement.
A few minutes after the announcement, the Ankara prosecutor’s office announced that an investigation had been launched into a cartoon publication case.
The publication of the cartoon is a testament to “the swamp of hatred against the Turks and Islam, in which Europe is sinking deeper and deeper every day,” the president’s office said.
Erdogan himself called Charlie Hebdo “villains” on Wednesday.
“I have nothing to say to these villains who insult my dear prophet on such a scale,” Erdogan said, calling what was happening a “disgusting attack.”
Erdogan is one of the main outraged Muslim nations for republishing Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, who angered Muslims 10 years ago.
Images of the Prophet Muhammad are forbidden in Islam, and cartoons of “Charlie Hebdo” are considered particularly provocative.
Erdogan has accused Macron of allowing Islamophobia to spread without banning the publication of these cartoons. Macron has responded by loudly defending the right to freedom of expression.
Macron recently expressed the same view at the funeral of the murdered French teacher Samuel Pati. Himself, who had shown students some of Muhammad’s cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo in a lesson on freedom of speech, was killed by an Islamic extremist of Chechen origin.
Erdogan joined calls for a boycott of French goods and on Saturday called for Macron, who had expressed a determination to crack down on radical Islam, to undergo a mental health check.
France responded by recalling the ambassador from Ankara.
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