Prosecutors yesterday launched a criminal inquiry against Berna Laçin, an actress who sparked outrage in social media with an anti-Islamic tweet. The chief prosecutor's office in Istanbul said the actress is being investigated on charges of an "insult to the religious values of people."

"If the death sentence were a solution, Medine wouldn't break record in rapes," Laçin wrote in a July 3 tweet, using the Turkish name for the Saudi city of Medina, a sacred city for Muslims.

She was commenting on a debate for the introduction of the death sentence for pedophiles.

The tweet drew the public ire while some social media users called for a boycott of American multinational corporation Procter and Gamble as Laçin stars in ads for the company's cleaning products.