Turkey sentenced two columnists to prison for two years on Thursday for illustrating articles with cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

A court in Istanbul convicted Hikmet Cetinkaya and Ceyda Karan with fomenting "hatred and enmity in the people via means of the press.” Bulent Utku, the journalists’ lawyer, said they would be appealing the sentence.

The cartoons in Cumhuriyet, an opposition newspaper, sparked outrage in sections of Turkish society when they were published in January last year as a gesture of solidarity with Charlie Hebdo, days after a massacre at the Parisian office by Islamist gunmen.