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Turkish pianist charged with insulting Islamic values
An internationally acclaimed Turkish classical pianist will stand trial on charges of insulting Muslim values in comments posted on Twitter, an Istanbul court ruled on Friday.Fazil Say quoted a well-known poem by Persian poet Omar Khayyam that ridiculed the hypocrisy of people who pretend to be pious. The court "accepted an indictment against Say for allegations of explicitly insulting religious values." If convicted, the pianist faces up to 18 months in prison. Khayyam's poem is in the form of a questions to the faithful: "You say rivers of wine flow in heaven, is heaven a tavern to you? You say two houris await each believer there, is heaven a brothel to you?" In a separate tweet, Say poked fun at a muezzin. He asked, "The muezzin finished the evening prayers in 22 seconds ... Why are you in such hurry? A lover? A raki table?" he asked, referring to the aniseed-flavored liquor popular in Turkey. Say is expected to stand trial in the coming months in a case that demonstrates how the tide has turned in Turkey since Erdogan was imprisoned for reciting a poem that a court ruled was an incitement to religious hatred. Erdogan, the then mayor of Istanbul, had belonged to an Islamist party that had been banned. He served six months in jail. The poem he had read contained the verses: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers." Posted by: 2012-06-02 |
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