Singer Gulsen Bayraktar Colakoglu, 46, remains in prison pending trial
Singer Gulsen Bayraktar Colakoglu, a Turkish pop icon, has been arrested on charges of “inciting hatred” for an alleged prank about a religious school. The facts attributed to the artist date back to an April concert where she joked with the group’s keyboardist, nicknamed ‘Iman’, and told the audience that “her perversion stems from studying at Imán Hatip schools” , a chain of secondary educational institutions with a religious vocation. The 46-year-old artist remains in prison pending his trial.
The apologies she made public via Twitter, where her account has more than one and a half million followers, have served the singer little. Gulsen wrote that his words on stage were “a joke I shared with my colleagues, with whom I worked for many years, which was spread by those who want to polarize society.” Before her fall the allegations of the leadership of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), whose education minister condemned “some words containing insults and slander against a community.” Similar words were spoken by those in charge of Justice and Culture. And the AKP spokesman, Ömer Çelik, was blunt when he assured that “attacking a segment of society with the accusation of ‘perversion’ and trying to polarize Turkey is a hate crime and an embarrassment to humanity.”
The artist’s defense came from the opposition Republican Party (CHP), whose leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, called for her immediate release, pointing out that the Islamists were responsible for “jokingly trying to pit the country’s youth against each other.” to put”. Faced with the allegations, Gulsen’s lawyer argued that it is “a disproportionate measure, my client has committed no crime”.
The Turkish pop star, author of hits like ‘Lolipop’, which has 13 million views on YouTube, has already been singled out by conservative sectors for her support for the country’s LGBTQ community, and the country’s social networks are interpreting this arrest as an attempt by Recep Tayyip Erdogan to consolidate support from the religious voter ahead of the elections scheduled in ten months’ time. The president and many members of his party have graduated from religious schools, which were established decades ago with the original purpose of educating imams.
Source: La Verdad
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