A Turkish photographer and model have been detained by police in the capital, Ankara, for ‘insulting religious values’ after a photo-shoot in the city’s Kocatepe Mosque, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Photographer Bilal Kisa and model Ezgi Cebeci faced a backlash from nationalist and Islamist accounts on social media after Kisa shared photos taken inside and in front of the mosque, in which Cebeci wore Islamic prayer beads as a necklace, a loose headscarf and a traditional male Muslim cap.
Kisa apologised on Monday, but he and Cebeci were arrested nevertheless and his photos confiscated.
“An investigation was initiated ex officio for the crime of publicly insulting the religious values adopted by a section of the public… due to the photographs taken by a director named Bilal Kisa with a female person in Ankara Kocatepe Mosque and published on social media,” the Prosecutor’s Office in Ankara said in a statement.
In his apology, Kisa saying his work had “deviated from its purpose”.
He insisted he had no intention of insulting Islam or Muslims but that he wished to challenge “the prejudices of a certain group of people who are offended by the mosque and show that the place where they will find peace is the mosque”.
“I apologise to everyone I hurt and misunderstood,” he wrote.
Source : Balkan Insight
