The charges appear to be related to a video circulating on social media of a Gulsen concert in April, when he joked about one of the musicians.
“He graduated from Imam Hatip (religious schools). That’s where his perverted side comes from,” he said.
Several Twitter users could be seen sharing the video on Thursday with a hashtag calling for his arrest and saying it’s offensive to associate schools with perverts.
Gulsen denies having committed any crime and is appealing the arrest, according to his lawyer Emek Emre.
After his arrest, Gulsen shared a message on his official Twitter and Instagram accounts, apologizing to “anyone who was offended” by the joke and saying it had been twisted by “malicious people who seek to polarize our country”.
“I made a joke with my colleagues, with whom I have worked for many years in the business. It was published by people who want to polarize society,” he said.
“In defending the freedom I believe in, I find myself thrown towards the radical end I criticize. I apologize to anyone who was offended by my speech in the video,” he said.
Later, in testimony, she said it was an “unfortunate joke” and asked to be released, saying she had a child who depended on her and would go to court or a police station when needed, according to Anadolu.
Gulsen has previously been targeted by conservative Turkish groups for her revealing stage outfits and support for the LGBTQ community.
The Muslim-majority country is officially secular, but highly polarized on issues related to secularism, religion, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights.
Imam Hatip schools, which teach religious studies alongside the Turkish curriculum, have grown in the two decades the conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been in power. The schools are known for training young people to become imams or preachers. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended the school, as did many members of the AKP party.
Controversy in Turkey
Reactions to the arrest have come from ordinary Turks, celebrities and even political parties.
After his arrest, social media posts showed Gulsen’s supporters in a packed football stadium singing his songs in solidarity.
Award-winning British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak called for Gulsen’s release, as did other cultural figures.
“I deeply regret the arrest of artist @gulsen. She was attacked for bravely defending women’s rights, LGBT+ rights, secularism, democracy and pluralism. This is a lynching campaign. It is neither legal nor conscientious. Free at the same time. # gulsenserbestbırakılsın,” she tweeted.
Iconic Turkish pop star Tarkan also took to Twitter on Friday, writing that “this injustice towards Gulsen must end and Gulsen must be released immediately.”
“Those who prosecute without arrest and sometimes even release without trial who sexually abuse children, murder women, rape women, but when it comes to Gulsen, they act quickly. Our legal system, which ignores the corrupt, steals. , violate the law, kill nature, kill animals, use religion as a tool for their own ideas of bigotry and polarize society, arrest Gulsen in one fell swoop,” he also wrote.
AKP members defended the arrest, with AKP spokesman Omer Celik saying “inciting hatred is not an art form” in a post on Twitter.
Turkish Finance Minister Dr. Nurettin Nebati tweeted: “Our Imam Hatip High Schools are our distinguished institutions that raise generations equipped with our national and moral values and have moral maturity. I strongly condemn this distorted language and the distorted mentality behind it. which is aimed at our young people studying in our Imam Hatip schools, and I find it unacceptable.”
Meanwhile, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition party described the backlash against Gulsen as a manufactured controversy aimed at “pitting our young people against each other”.
“The winds of peace between young people with different lifestyles have been blowing for a long time. The purpose (of the arrest) is to take a joke that has outlived its purpose and confront our young people. It is to stay more. in power, and more to steal and steal,” Kemal Kilicdaroglu wrote on Twitter.
Presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey are scheduled for early next summer.