Turkey police owned employees of satirical magazine about the controversy of the cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad

The police in Türkiye In owned Tuesday three other employees of a satirical magazine, increasing the number of people placed in custody on a cartoon which would have represented the prophet Muhammad at four.

The cartoon, published in Leman magazine, attracted a series of condemnations of government representatives who declared that he represented the prophet Muhammad and sparked an angry demonstration in front of the magazine’s Istanbul office.

Leman, in a statement on Monday evening, denied allegations and insisted that the drawing was intended to represent a Muslim man named Muhammad and was to highlight the suffering of Muslims.

The pro -government newspaper Yeni Safak said that the cartoon showed “two figures that would be the Prophet Muhammad and the Prophet Moïse – with wings and halos – shaking his hand in the sky, while a war scene takes place below with bombs that are raining.”

The independent newspaper of Birgun also said that the winged figures hovering in the sky were interpreted by some as prophets Muhammad and Moses.

The authorities launched an investigation into the weekly magazine on Monday for accusations of “publicly insulting insults” and owned the caricaturist, Dogan Pehlevan, of his home.

Overnight, the editor -in -chief of Leman, Zafer Aknar, the graphic designer Cebrail Okcu and the manager Ali Yavuz were also detained, reported the Anadolu agency managed by the state. Detention mandates have also been issued for two publishers who are abroad, according to the report.

Late Monday, demonstrators, belonging to an Islamic group, launched rocks at the headquarters of Leman in the center of Istanbul and escaped with the police.

The publication apologized for any caused offense, but it also called on the authorities to act against what it described as a smear campaign and to protect freedom of expression.

Distinct videos of the arrests, shared by the Minister of the Interior Ali Yerlikaya, showed that Pehlevan and Yavuz were taken by force of their houses, their hands being handcuffed behind their back.

“These shameless people will be held responsible before the law,” wrote Yerlikaya on X.