ژورنال سایت خبری سیاسی ژورنال
PDF-English Journal-2 July 2025-No14
On Monday 30 June, a crowd of enraged Islamists gathered outside a satirical magazine office in Turkey, in an all-too-familiar ritual of outrage. Accused of insulting the Prophet of Islam, the satirical magazine LeMan has become the latest target in a growing trend of religiously fuelled censorship and state-enabled intimidation. The scenes were chilling: threats of violence, shouts of vengeance, and a refrain echoed time and again — “either we die, or we kill.”
As in so many similar episodes in recent years, this fascist-Islamist spectacle was orchestrated by the state and its affiliated gangs. Right out of the gate, President Erdoğan handed the matter to the judiciary, calling for action against “those who insult our noble Prophet and all our prophets.” The editor-in-chief, the director of the publishing house, and the cartoonist behind the controversial image were arrested on charges of “publicly insulting religious values.”
The Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office ordered the latest issue of the magazine to be confiscated.
A group calling itself the “Great Eastern Islamic Combat Front” declared that “the flag of monotheism will be raised above the LeMan office.” Its regional leader announced, “Either they die or we do. We have come with [the authority of] that light, to give life and take life.” All of this makes it abundantly clear that behind this thuggery stands Erdoğan’s government and a web of official and unofficial actors aligned with the regime.
Viewed in the broader context of political Islam—both Shia and Sunni—these incidents are the desperate spasms of dying Islamist movements, confronted by citizens outraged and fed up with religion invading their lives.
Khamenei, the embattled godfather of the Shia branch of political Islam—who recently even claimed to speak for God—remains in hiding within his own regime. Rather than leading funeral prayers for his slain commanders, he sends out cardboard cutouts of himself to parade in the streets. Erdoğan, having struggled hard to elevate himself as the Sunni equivalent of this Islamist godfather, remains reeling from the massive protests that recently erupted to bring him down.
All branches of Islamist terrorism—and their shared prophet—now face a bleak future in the aftermath of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising. A revolution born of deep public disgust with Islam, political Islam and its terror apparatus—one that many hope, in its next wave, will grind this beast into the dust.
English journal about the current situation in Iran
Editor-in-Chief: Keyvan Javid
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Editor: Patty Debonitas
