Click to read the article in Turkish

Iconic pop singer Sezen Aksu has faced threats over the past week because of a 2017 song of hers in which she says, “Say hello to those ignorant Eve and Adam.”

Aksu released a video clip for the song on the new year’s eve. About two weeks later, pro-government social media figures began to target Aksu over the song, accusing her of “insulting religious values.”

A group of government supporters filed a criminal complaint against Aksu and staged a protest in front of her house.

Aksu then became the target of the pro-government media, government politicians and their allies, and finally, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

In speech during the Friday prayers at İstanbul’s Grand Çamlıca Mosque, he said, “No one can defame his holiness, Adam. It is our duty, when the time comes, to rip off the tongues of those who defame him. No one can defame her holiness Eve.”

The president, who has a habit of speaking to reporters after Friday prayers, chose to give a speech inside the mosque this time.

CLICK – Turkey’s media authority ‘warns’ broadcasters against playing Sezen Aksu’s song’

The state-run Anadolu Agency (AA) and other mainstream media outlets did not cover his words threatening Aksu, but they were revealed after a video taken by a person in the mosque began to circulate on social media.

Having remained silent until then, Aksu made a statement on her Facebook account yesterday (January 22). She thanked those who announced support for her and said, “As you know, the matter is not me, the matter is the country.”

Aksu also shared the lyrics of a new song, which she said she wrote the day before. “You can’t crush my tongue,” she says in the song, apparently in response to Erdoğan’s threats. In a short time, people on social media translated the lyrics into more than 30 languages.

Lyrics of the song which Aksu named “The Hunter” (Avcı):

You can’t make me sad

I’m already very sad

I see pain wherever I look at

I see pain wherever I look at

I’m the prey and you’re the hunter

Shoot me then…

You can’t sense me

You can’t crush my tongue

I see pain wherever I look at

I see pain wherever I look at

Who is the traveler, who is the innkeeper

We’ll see…

You can’t kill me

I have my voice, my instruments, my words

When I say ‘me’, I mean everyone

(AS/VK)