Posted29 August 2022, 15:04
TurkeySinger under house arrest after mocking religious schools
The “Gülsen” pop star had been in custody since Thursday. She faces up to several years in prison.
Turkish pop star Gülsen, accused of “inciting hatred” for mocking religious schools on stage, was placed under house arrest on Monday after four days in detention, his lawyer said. The 46-year-old singer, whose real name is Gülsen Bayraktar Colakoglu, has been placed under house arrest by an Istanbul court pending trial. She faces up to several years in prison.
Scene went viral
“We welcome his release. Although the remarks she made may be disturbing, it is obvious that they do not constitute a crime”, declared her lawyer Emek Emre to the press, judging her house arrest “incompatible with the law”.
His arrest on Thursday provoked strong reactions in Turkey. At a concert in April, Gülsen said the “perversion” of one of his musicians was due to his upbringing at an Imam Hatip school, prompting a burst of laughter from the audience. These religious secondary schools, of which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was a student, have flourished since the coming to power in 2002 of his Islamo-conservative AKP party.
An excerpt from the scene went viral on social media last week, sparking outrage among ruling party executives, less than a year from the next presidential election.
bold artist
Famous for her outfits considered daring by some of the Turks and for her support for the rights of the LGBTQ community, Gülsen is a well-known artist in Turkey, an almost exclusively Muslim but constitutionally secular country.
Other Turkish artists have found themselves in the sights of the curators in recent months. Some could not go on stage because of behavior deemed “inappropriate” or because they sing in a regional language. Ironically, the pop star’s latest music video was set…in prison.
(AFP)