Reuters, 28/04 15:49 CET
By Ece Toksabay
ANKARA (Reuters) – A Turkish
court sentenced two journalists to two years in jail for blasphemy on
Thursday, their newspaper said, after they reprinted a controversial
cover from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo above their
columns last year.
The judgement is likely to inflame concerns about freedom
of expression in Turkey, where opposition newspapers have been seized
and a number of journalists have been sued for insulting President
Tayyip Erdogan.
Ceyda Karan and Hikmet Cetinkaya, columnists for
Cumhuriyet daily, had faced jail terms of up to 4-1/2 years for
“insulting religious values” after they reprinted the caricature of the
Prophet Mohammad following the January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo in
Paris.
Muslim Turkey’s constitution strictly separates state and
religion but its penal code makes it a crime to insult religion. For
Muslims, any depiction of the Prophet is blasphemous.
“We will appeal (the ruling). We will not leave this country to fascists in Islam sauce,” Karan said on Twitter.
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Source: Euronews
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