Turkish pop diva Sezen Aksu incurs wrath over ‘insult to Islam’

Accompanied by a group of people, a lawyer named Mikail Yılmaz filed a criminal complaint against Aksu to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, charging her with “insulting religious values and provocation or degrading.” Last Saturday, Mustafa Açıkgöz, a lawmaker with Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) accused Aksu of attacking Turkish values “under the guise of arts and music.” “Our people are fed up with people like you,” he tweeted. The 67-year-old songwriter sold more than 40 million albums around the world is credited with laying the foundations of Turkish pop music in the 1970s.

January 22, 2022 | 6:27 pm