Turkish pop star Gulsen has been arrested on charges of “inciting hatred and enmity” for a joke she made about Turkey’s religious schools, the state news agency reported.
The 46-year-old singer-songwriter, whose full name is Gulsen Colakoglu, was taken from her home in Istanbul for questioning and formally arrested on Thursday night before being taken to prison to await trial.
The arrest sparked outrage on social media. Government critics said the move was an effort by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to consolidate his religious and conservative support base ahead of elections in 10 months.
The charges were based on a prank Gulsen made during a concert in Istanbul in April when she joked that the “perversion” of one of her musicians stemmed from the fact that she attended a religious school. A video of the singer making the comments recently began circulating on social media, with a hashtag calling for her arrest.
During his interrogation, Gulsen rejected accusations that he incited hatred and enmity, telling judicial authorities that he had “endless respect for the values and sensibilities of my country,” the state-run Anadolu agency reported.
She refused a request that she be released pending the outcome of a trial.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of Turkey’s main opposition party, called on Turkey’s judges and prosecutors to release Gulsen.
“Do not betray the law and justice; Release the artist now!” he wrote her on Twitter.
However, the spokesman for Erdogan’s ruling party, Omer Celik, appeared to defend the decision to arrest the singer, saying “hate speech is not an art form.”
“Targeting a segment of society with the accusation of ‘perversion’ and trying to polarize Turkey is a hate crime and a disgrace to humanity,” Celik tweeted.
Erdogan and many members of his Islam-based ruling party are graduates of religious schools originally established to train imams. The number of religious schools has increased under Erdogan, who has vowed to raise a “pious generation.”