'Islamist' Turkish police check newspaper Cumhuriyet over Charlie Hebdo cartoons. (TodaysZaman).
Police on Wednesday stopped trucks as they left a pro-secular newspaper's printing center and checked the paper's content after it decided to print a selection of Charlie Hebdo caricatures, the paper said.
Cumhuriyet newspaper said police allowed distribution to proceed after verifying that the satirical French newspaper's controversial cover featuring the Prophet Muhammad was not published.
The paper printed a four-page selection of cartoons and articles on Wednesday in a show of solidarity with Charlie Hebdo but left out cartoons which Muslims may find offensive. However, two Cumhuriyet columnists used small, black-and-white images of the Charlie Hebdo cover as their column headers in Wednesday's issue.
"While preparing this selection, we respected societies' freedoms of faith and religious sensitivities," said Cumhuriyet's editor-in-chief, Utku Çakırözer.
"Following a large number of consultations, we decided not to include the magazine's cover page," Çakırözer said. He did not mention the two columnists' decision to use images of the cover in their columns.
Caricatures featured in Cumhuriyet included some depicting Pope Francis and French President François Hollande, and one referring to a massacre by Boko Haram in Nigeria.
Despite the daily’s decision not to publish the most controversial cartoons, police extended security measures in the surroundings of its offices in Istanbul’s central Şişli neighborhood.
An employee of daily Cumhuriyet told the Hürriyet Daily News on condition of anonymity on Jan. 15 that the newspaper had received hundreds of death threats.
Despite the official message of support to the victims, the magazine has been chided by many officials and commentators for publishing cartoons of Muhammad.
“Daily Cumhuriyet will be complicit with a magazine that insults sacred values and commits hate crimes against Muslims, slamming religion,” said conservative daily Yani Şafak, known for its closeness to the government.
The Turkish Journalists' Union (TGC) “The public sees new interventions against people's right to receive information and learn facts each day in Turkey -- which ranks 154th on the World Press Freedom Index. The latest example of this was the police attempt to prevent the distribution of Cumhuriyet without any court order.” It said that this act of the police is an example of censorship. Read the full story here.More here.
Court in #Turkey ordered to shut down the related link of online web portals of #CharlieHebdo's cover page. At least 4 portals used it.
— Zeynep Erdim (@zeynep_erdim) January 14, 2015
#Turkey court orders severing access to pages of 4 news portals that published cover page of #CharlieHebdo
— Abdullah Bozkurt (@abdbozkurt) January 14, 2015
I Will walk in #Paris for #CharlieHebdo claiming #JeSuisCharlie But i'll block the publication in Islamist #Turkey pic.twitter.com/s8ztDvIodQ
— MFS - The Other News (@MFS001) January 14, 2015
Fuck your hypocrisy. Marching for #CharlieHebdo but getting it printed in #Turkey is a nono. Ridiculous!
— Capulcu Tonella (@diehimbeertonis) January 14, 2015
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