‘Blasphemy’ tweets pianist sentenced in Turkey

A WORLD-renowned concert pianist has been given a suspended jail sentence in Turkey for insulting religious values on social networking site Twitter, a case that has become a cause célèbre for Turks alarmed about creeping Islamic conservatism

Fazil Say went on trial in October for blasphemy – a crime that can carry an 18-month sentence – for a series of tweets, including one citing a 1,000-year-old poem. “The fact I’ve been convicted for an offence I didn’t commit is less worrying for me personally than it is for freedom of expression and faith in Turkey,” he said.

Mr Say, 43, re-tweeted a verse in April last year in which 11th-century Persian poet Omar Khayyam mocks pious hypocrisy. It is in the form of questions to believers: “You say rivers of wine flow in heaven, is heaven a tavern to you? You say two houris await each believer there, is heaven a brothel to you?”

In another tweet, he poked fun at a muezzin, someone who makes the Muslim call to prayer.

An Istanbul court gave him a ten-month jail sentence but suspended it for five years on condition he does not commit the same crime again in that period.