EXPLAINED: Police raid over Charlie Hebdo's Turkish version

Police raided the printing press of Turkish daily Cumhuriyet on Jan. 14, as it prepared to distribute a four-page selection of Charlie Hebdo?s new issue in an act of solidarity with the French satirical magazine targeted last week in a deadly attack that claimed 12 victims. Here are some questions and answers to explain the raid and its consequences... 1) What exactly did Turkish daily Cumhuriyet publish?

As a supplement, Cumhuriyet published a selection from Charlie Hebdo?s much-anticipated Jan. 14 issue in support of free speech. On its front page, the newspaper stressed that it ?compiled the selection by respecting religious sensitivities and the freedom of belief,? as well as its own publishing principles that reject ethnic and religious discrimination. As a result, the cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad in the original French issue of Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 14 did not appear in the supplement, or on the front page of Cumhuriyet, due to these ?sensitivities.?

2) So why all the fuss?

Photos of the two Cumhuriyet columnists were featured on the website of the pro-government daily Yeni ?afak, accompanying a damning article about the Charlie Hebdo issue.

Ceyda Karan and Hikmet Çetinkaya, two columnists of Cumhuriyet, decided to publish the original Charlie Hebdo cover depicting the Prophet Muhammad in their columns inside the main newspaper.

Police were mobilized at midnight when it was still not clear which Charlie Hebdo content Cumhuriyet would publish, or where. While the initial social media storm after midnight targeted the newspaper as a whole, the focus of online threats and stories in pro-government newspapers targeting them turned to the two columnists later in the morning.
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