Controversial French magazine sparks outrage in Turkey with cartoon of Erdogan

Turkey says the French magazine Charlie Hebdo is spreading “cultural racism and hatred,” following the recent publication of a cartoon of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, amid a major feud between the Turkish leader and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Ankara on Wednesday said it will take "legal and diplomatic actions" over the offensive cartoon.

"We assure our people that necessary legal and diplomatic actions will be taken against this cartoon," the Turkish presidency said in a statement.

The Ankara prosecutor's office announced shortly afterwards that an "official investigation" into the publication was already underway, Anadolu reported.

Earlier, Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin condemned the caricature in the French magazine, “which has no respect for any belief, sacredness, and values.”

“They are just showing their own vulgarity and immorality. An attack on personal rights is not humor and freedom of expression,” the Turkish presidential spokesman said on Wednesday.

Erdogan’s communications director Fahrettin Altun also condemned “this most disgusting effort by this publication to spread its cultural racism and hatred.”

He said in a Twitter message that “Macron’s anti-Muslim agenda is bearing fruit!”

Turkish president urges boycott of French goods

‘As it has been said in France,

The French president has sparked outrage among Muslims across the world for his defense of the publication earlier of blasphemous cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) by Charlie Hebdo.

A trial is underway in France over a 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris.

The magazine republished the offensive cartoons in the run-up to the trial last month.

Macron has also come under fire across the Muslim world for his remarks about “Islamist separatism,” which according to him threatens to take control in some Muslim communities around France.

Erdogan said in reaction to Macron’s remarks that the French leader needed “mental health treatment.”

“What is the problem of this person called Macron with Muslims and Islam?” Erdogan said on Saturday.

The Turkish president also on Monday called on his people to boycott French products, saying that Macron had targeted Muslims with a “lynch campaign.”

Maron’s government has introduced a draft law at the senate seeking to prohibit the justification of a crime due to ethnic or religious motives on constitutional grounds.

Erdogan said that “the main goal of such initiatives led by Macron is to settle old scores with Islam and Muslims.”

The draft law came a week after a teacher was beheaded outside his school in a Paris suburb. Samuel Paty, a history teacher, had raised controversy and provoked anger by showing defamatory cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to his students. He was murdered by an 18-year-old assailant, identified as Chechen Abdullakh Anzorov, who was shot dead by police soon after the killing.

Macron said Paty was murdered because he “taught freedom of expression.”

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