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Turkish Pianist Charged with Insulting Muslim Values

(Reuters-Chicago Tribune) Fazil Say, an internationally acclaimed Turkish classical pianist, is to stand trial on charges of insulting Muslim religious values in comments posted on Twitter, an Istanbul court ruled on Friday. The pianist had quoted a well-known poem by the 11th century Persian poet Omar Khayyam that ridiculed the hypocrisy of people who pretend to be pious. The case shows how the tide has turned in Turkey since Prime Minister Erdogan was imprisoned in 1998 for reciting a poem that a court ruled was an incitement to religious hatred. Erdogan, who served six months in jail, read a poem with the verse: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers."
2012-06-04 00:00:00
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