‘In Turkey, it is part of our essence to cope using humour’: Comic artist Ersin Karabulut

“Down with secularism and long live Sharia law”. That’s the cry that went up a week ago outside the satirical magazine LeMan in Istanbul after it published an image interpreted by some as a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed. A violent protest took place outside the office of the magazine, which is known as the “Turkish Charlie Hebdo”. Four of its staff members were arrested and the courts subsequently blocked its website in the name of public order.