The United States is concerned about Turkey’s efforts to limit freedom of expression through censorship and judicial interventions, a State Department spokesman said today, following the arrest of a pop star for comments she made on stage.
The well-known singer and songwriter Gulsen was remanded in custody on Thursday, accused of inciting hatred. It was sparked by a remark he made on stage last April about religious schools in Turkey, after a video of that performance has now been broadcast by pro-government media.
Many ministers condemned Gulsen’s comments but her arrest sparked a backlash from critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, who see it as punishing those who oppose her conservative views.
Demonstrators in Istanbul criticized what they called the “inconsistency” of the judiciary, which stood idly by on violence against women but quickly investigated and arrested the singer. Many said Gulsen was targeted because she expresses liberal views and supports the rights of the LGBTI community. “Hundreds of women would be alive today if men who attack women were arrested as quickly as Gulsen,” organizers of a demonstration in Istanbul said. Her arrest is the latest in a series of injustices against “women who don’t fit the mold” or aren’t “the kind of woman the government wants,” they said.
In the video of her performance, Gulsen refers to a musician in her orchestra and says, as a joke: “He studied at (s.s. religious school) Imam Hatip. That’s where his perversion comes from.”
Erdogan himself studied at one of the first Imam Hatip schools, which were originally established to train imams and preachers but have now exploded in numbers.
SOURCE: AMPE
Source: Capital
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