Cartoonists’ & free speech orgs in support of LeMan magazine

From Cartoonists Rights International.

The undersigned are appalled by the victimization of staff at LeMan humor magazine, Istanbul in recent days, following the publication June 26th of a cartoon strip by Doğan Pehlevan, the content, meaning, and intent of which has been distorted by government officials in Turkey, leading to inaccurate media coverage and misguided public outrage and, ultimately, four jailed on multiple charges, two more colleagues wanted by police, and the entire entity under investigation for accepting foreign influence.

• Association of Canadian Cartoonists / L’Association de caricaturistes Canadien
• Daryl Cagle – Cagle Cartoons, Inc. (Newspaper Syndicate)
• Cartoon Movement
• Cartooning for Peace
• Cartoonists Rights
• Columbia Global Freedom of Expression
• European Cartoon Award
• Forum for Humour and the Law (ForHum)
• Freedom Cartoonists Foundation
• Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC Strategy
• Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation (PCO)
• ToonsMag

The week of June 30th was marked by a wave of arrests of oppositional figures redolent of the crackdown that ensued after the attempted coup of 2016. 

The former mayor of Izmir, Tunç Soyer and more than 150 Republican Party officials and members now join former Istanbul mayor and presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu in custody, besides scores of others detained in 2025.

What is happening at LeMan is just one piece of a wider pattern, but it should not be dismissed as a minor incident. 

It is apparent that what started as an overblown and disingenuous line of prosecution has now provided the pretext for a concerted effort to eliminate the magazine entirely.

We wish to make the following clear:

• The June 26th cartoon categorically does not portray the Prophet Muhammad and this should be obvious to anyone who cares to examine it dispassionately. In the context of indiscriminate civilian deaths due to military action in the Middle East, the artwork depicts the angelic spirits of two deceased men, a Muslim named “Muhammad” (as millions are) and a Jew named “Musa” i.e. Moses. The two greet each other as they ascend to heaven, and bombs continue to fall in the background. It is a humane, bittersweet, and even-handed exhortation for peace.
• The interventions of the governor of Istanbul, the ministers for Justice and the Interior, and the President of the Turkish Republic variously describing the cartoon as a “vile provocation”, a “disrespect toward beliefs” or similar, amounting to a crime against religious sensibilities are therefore incorrect.
• It follows that the arrest warrants issued for six individuals associated with LeMan magazine were baseless and should be rescinded.
• The four men held – Pehlevan, as well as editor-in-chief Zafer Aknar, graphic designer Cebrail Okçu, and editorial director Ali Yavuz – must be released immediately, and the charges of “inciting hatred” against them dropped.
• The video footage of their arrests made June 30th , disseminated via official channels on social media, represented a disgusting display of authoritarianism, betraying the true intent of this line of prosecution; to intimidate and repress voices within Türkiye at odds with the establishment.
• Any further pursuit of founder Tuncay Akgün and editor Askan Ozdemi must end.
• The new accusations leveled July 2nd, that LeMan is taking foreign funds to foster discontent in Turkey, are absurd on their face. There was no disturbances to speak of in Istanbul for four days after the publication of the supposedly offensive cartoon, not until ministers and prosecutors made unsubstantiated claims about its content. On the contrary, it is the Turkish government that provoke mass protests and civil unrest by the jailing their political opponents.
• Those on the streets of Istanbul seeking retribution in the past weeks have been manipulated by political opportunists. They should return to their home peaceably, confident that no comment was made about any religious figure, and so there is no reasonable cause for offense.
• Lastly, with regard to the matter of defamation of the president, Mr Erdoğan has a long and storied history of taking cartoonists and satirists to court and has been told before that such portrayals come with the office. If he is too thin-skinned to endure caricature, he is more than welcome to change career and leave public life.

This affair is only the latest sorry chapter in the degradation of Türkiye’s rich and once cherished tradition of cartooning. We demand that those who continue are left to go about their work untroubled.