Turkish pianist convicted of insulting religion through tweets

http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-turkish-pianist-insulting-religion-tweets-20130415,0,4684685.story


Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris in 2010. (Fred Dufour / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images / February 9, 2010)

By Emily Alpert
April 15, 2013, 10:20 a.m.

A famed Turkish pianist was convicted Monday of insulting religion after sending a string of tweets deemed denigrating to Islam. Fazil Say was handed a suspended prison sentence of 10 months, according to news reports, stoking concerns in Turkey and abroad about freedom of speech.

The pianist reportedly invoked a verse by the Persian poet Omar Khayyam, which rhetorically asks believers if heaven is a tavern or a brothel, since wine and virgins are said to be waiting there.

Say also joked about an unusually short call to prayer, “Why such haste? Have you got a mistress waiting or [an alcoholic drink] on the table?”

Such statements took “a disrespectful, offensive and impertinent tone toward religious concepts such as heaven and the call to prayer,” Emre Bukagili, who filed an initial complaint against Say, wrote in an email to the Associated Press.

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