Gülsen, a Turkish pop diva, was booked into an Istanbul women’s prison on Thursday afternoon for a joke she made on stage nearly four months ago. This has been taken out of context with “provocative mood”, according to the singer, who has clarified that she was joking about the group’s own keyboardist when he exclaimed, to the laughter of the public, that “that is a pervert, of course, as he studied for imam “.
The dissemination on social networks of a clip of a few seconds of that performance has caused a stir in the conservative and pro-government media, justifying the opening of an investigation in the eyes of the Istanbul prosecutor general. The singer was arrested yesterday at her house in the Besiktas neighborhood and, after making her statement, she was placed in preventive detention accused of “inciting discord.”
The sensual singer has had to explain that, during the concert, she called the orchestra to carry her “on their shoulders to the public”. When one of the musicians replied that Miraç, the keyboard player, would be delighted, she continued the humorous dialogue adding “of course, since she studied at an Imam Hatip she has come out as perverted”.
It should be clarified that, in Turkey, the quintessential student of an Imam Hatip (religious institute) is President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Hence, the voice cut, provocatively spread out of context, is a bomb for the most modest electorate of his party. The singer herself has questioned the moment and the intention of its diffusion “with a provocative spirit”.
Gülsen is a singer who, throughout her long career – she is 46 years old – has not hesitated to seek provocation, with an explosive staging, high-voltage erotic clothing and some very spicy videos and lyrics. See, Bangir, bangir, which she shot in Old Havana. But in this case, it is a provocation sought by others.
In the face of this scandalous censorship, the opposition does not speak with one voice. A member of the opposition CHP speaks of “offended people” and that they are closely following the case. Another demands that pretrial detention must be an extraordinary measure to prevent leaks or destruction of evidence, “never to silence.”
The homologation of the Imam Hatip or religious institutes was one of the banners of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) when coming to power. Then it has multiplied their number and endowment. But until then they had the stigma of being a container for poor students, originating from backward areas, and were despised by the secular wealthy classes.
Although Gülsen herself was born in a traditional, working-class neighborhood in the old part of Istanbul, the daughter of Anatolian parents, from a very young age she applied herself to breaking the mold and some have not forgiven her triumphs. The class hatred in Turkey, exacerbated by both sides and in which religion or secularism are just instruments, has caught her in the middle of it.
“I do not accept that a joke with my best friend, the keyboard player Miraç, whom we call “the imam”, is interpreted as a provocation to certain people”, the artist, now behind bars, has settled, “because I believe in equal opportunities “. The concert took place in Atasehir, a new, secular and wealthy neighborhood on the Asian side of Istanbul, on April 30.
