“Devil Horns” Salute Results in Five Arrests in Turkey

Nicholas Birch of The Irish Times reports that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan ordered the arrest of several men in Istanbul last weekend after flashing the metal salutes to a passing cavalcade.

Yusuf Sengul was attending a metal festival with 4 of his friends, when they made the sign at the passing vehicles. Sengul stated:

“The tinted windows of one of the cars opened and a guy in dark glasses shouted ‘what the hell are you doing’… They said they were acting on the orders of the prime minister, we were laughing. We thought it was a joke.”

It was no joke. All five men were bundled into cars, taken to a police station, and held without charge for 21 hours. To add a touch of freakin’ strange to the debacle, Turkish authorities forced the men to listen to a selection of pop and Turkish music after being handcuffed, fingerprinted and repeatedly questioned.

Prime Minister Erdogan has been repeatedly blamed for “outbursts of intolerance” and his “conservative democrat” party advisers have repeatedly pressured media outlets to fire journalists who have maintained independent views. They also have the charming habit of fining cartoonists who draw satirical images of Erdogan.

Prime Minister Erdogan said about the incident:

“I unfortunately saw the state of some of our young people, and it was depressing. This endless, uncontrolled moral erosion is really worrying. We must defend our family structure.”

I’ll tell you what’s depressing. Intolerant totalitarians that will bully and torture (pop music? Damn that, waterboard me) their own citizens based on what they claim is good for the people. What we’re seeing here is a man who equates metal with “moral erosion”, all while trying to force people to conform to his ridiculous idea of Utopian society.

How do you say “hypocritical asshole” in Turkish?

[via: Blabbermouth]
[image: Newscom]