Turkish pop star Gülsen under house arrest for mocking religious schools

Turkish pop star Gülsen, accused of“incitement to hatred” for making fun of religious schools on stage, was placed under house arrest on Monday August 29 after four days of detention, her lawyer announced. The 46-year-old singer, whose real name is Gülsen Bayraktar Colakoglu, was released on Monday afternoon from Istanbul’s Bakirkoy prison. Assigned to residence by an Istanbul court pending trial, she faces several years in prison.

“We welcome her release. Although the comments she made may be disturbing, it is clear that they do not constitute a crime”, his lawyer Emek Emre told the press, deeming his house arrest to be against the law. His arrest on August 25 provoked strong reactions in Turkey.

During a concert in April, Gülsen said that the “perversion” of one of its musicians was due to his education in an Imam Hatip school, causing a burst of laughter in 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.

“Those who insult the sacred values ​​of our nation will not be able to escape their responsibility”President Erdogan said during a speech on Monday evening, in reference to the lawsuits against the pop star. “For years they tried to exclude my people,” he added, in an allusion to the decades of unchallenged rule of Westernized secular elites over Turkey.

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 have had their concerts canceled due to judged behavior “inappropriate” or because they sing in a regional language.