Turkey erupts over satirical 'Prophet Muhammad' cartoon: Why LeMan magazine is facing public outrage and arrests

Islamist protesters shout slogans against cartoonists as they gather near Leman Magazine in Istanbul on June 30, 2025.

A cartoon published by Turkey’s popular satirical magazine LeMan has triggered a wave of nationwide protests, arrests, and a fierce debate on the limits of free expression. The illustration, which appeared to depict the Prophet Muhammad – a deeply sensitive issue in Islam – sparked outrage across Turkey, with angry crowds gathering outside the magazine’s Istanbul office and police detaining multiple staff members, including the cartoonist.

While LeMan insists the image was misinterpreted and not intended as a portrayal of the Prophet, religious groups and Turkish authorities have accused the magazine of blasphemy and insulting Islamic values. The controversy has once again exposed the precarious balancing act between freedom of speech and respect for religious sentiment in a country that straddles secular and conservative traditions.

Latest developments

On Monday, violent clashes were reported in Turkey with police firing rubber bullets and tear gas to break up an angry mob protesting over the controversial cartoon.

Following the clashes, four staff members of LeMan magazine — the editor-in-chief, cartoonist, graphic designer, and institutional director — were arrested. Turkey’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya called the cartoon “shameless,” while Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said, “No freedom allows mocking sacred religious values in an ugly way.”

"The chief public prosecutor's office has launched an investigation into the publication of a cartoon in the June 26, 2025 issue of LeMan magazine that publicly insults religious values, and arrest warrants have been issued for those involved," the prosecutor's office said.

What LeMan says

The magazine's editor-in-chief Tuncay Akgun told AFP by phone from Paris that the image had been misinterpreted and was "not a caricature of Prophet Mohammed".

"In this work, the name of a Muslim who was killed in the bombardments of Israel is fictionalised as Mohammed. More than 200 million people in the Islamic world are named Mohammed," he said, saying it had "nothing to do with Prophet Mohammed.

"We would never take such a risk."

Police had also taken over the magazine's offices on Istiklal Avenue and arrest warrants had been issued for several other of the magazine's executives, presidential press aide Fahrettin Altin wrote on X.

In a string of posts on X, LeMan defended the cartoon and said it had been deliberately misinterpreted to cause a provocation.

"The cartoonist wanted to portray the righteousness of the oppressed Muslim people by depicting a Muslim killed by Israel, he never intended to belittle religious values," it said.

Akgun said the legal attack on the magazine, a satirical bastion of opposition which was founded in 1991, was "incredibly shocking but not very surprising".

"This is an act of annihilation. Ministers are involved in the whole business, a cartoon is distorted," he said.

"Drawing similarities with Charlie Hebdo is very intentional and very worrying," he said of the French satirical magazine whose offices were stormed by Islamist gunmen in 2015.

The attack, which killed 12 people, occurred after it published caricatures lampooning the Prophet Mohammed.

Why uproar over the cartoon

Many Muslims consider any depiction of Prophet Muhammad as deeply offensive and blasphemous. While the Quran doesn’t explicitly ban images of the Prophet, chapter 42, verse 11 says: “[Allah is] the originator of the heavens and the earth… [there is] nothing like a likeness of Him.” Muslims interpret this to mean that Allah’s form is beyond human depiction, and attempting to illustrate Him—or the Prophet—is an insult.

Chapter 21, verses 52-54 also warns against idol worship: “[Abraham] said to his father and his people: ‘What are these images to whose worship you cleave?’ ... ‘Certainly you have been, you and your fathers, in manifest error’.” This has led to the belief that images can lead to idolatry, which Islam prohibits.

Experts say cartoons of the Prophet feel like personal attacks to many Muslims. Dalia Mogahed told Vox: “It is a human impulse to want to protect what’s sacred to you,” comparing it to how Americans view the burning of the national flag. Reza Aslan agreed: “Just as Americans view their national identity as sacred, so do Muslims about their religious identity.”

Retired Islamic law professor Hayrettin Karaman added, “To depict the Prophet Muhammad is a kind of forgery or deceit. Because no portrait can represent the real one.”

Aslan also noted that some depictions are meant to provoke: “Those cartoons were a deliberate attempt to poke a stick in the eye of Denmark’s Muslim community.”