Turkish Pianist Arraigned for Tweets Mocking Islam

Accused of inciting public hatred

Fazil Say, the Turkish pianist and composer was arraigned today in a Turkish court, accused of inciting hatred and insulting Islam on Twitter.

How can this be? This is the Turkey that we all want the rest of the Middle East to emulate in its tolerance. It's the same Turkey that, when radical Islamists across the region started storming U.S. embassies over a video that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a pedophile, condemned the protests and violence, as well as the video.

So maybe what Say said was even worse? There are about half a dozen tweets and retweets in the indictment, here are the highlights:

"What if there is raki in paradise but not in hell, while there is Chivas Regal in hell and not in paradise? What will happen then? This is the most important question!"

Another tweet makes fun of a muezzin for taking only 22 seconds to sing the call to prayer, asking if he has a mistress or some raki waiting for him to get back to. Another suggests that whenever people are notably greedy or thieves or otherwise bad, they turn out to be "exceedingly pious."