Aslan Ozdemir, the managing editor of Turkish satirical magazine LeMan, was detained at Istanbul Airport on Friday as part of an ongoing investigation into the magazine over a controversial cartoon that depicted the Prophet Muhammad and Prophet Moses.
Axar.az reports Ozdemir, who was previously reported to be abroad and was the subject of a detention warrant, was taken into custody after arriving on a Turkish Airlines flight from Marseille.
He has been charged with “inciting hatred and enmity or degrading the public,” and the court has ruled for the detention of the suspect.
The magazine’s staff is under investigation due to a cartoon in LeMan’s June 26 issue depicting two men named Muhammad and Moses greeting each other above a bombed city, which sparked angry protests from religious and conservative circles in İstanbul.
The magazine said the illustration was a political critique of Israel’s bombing of Gaza, not a depiction of religious figures.