Erdogan sues senior opposition official for 'insult'

By Zafer Fatih Beyaz

ANKARA

Turkey’s president on Wednesday sued a top official of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) for compensation over remarks he made in an address earlier this week.

In remarks to a crowd on Monday in the northwestern Tekirdag province, the CHP's Deputy Chairman Bulent Tezcan called President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a “fascist dictator”.

On Tuesday, Erdogan filed a criminal complaint against Tezcan, and now is claiming 50,000 Turkish liras ($13,000) in compensation for allegedly "violating his personal rights".

Ankara prosecutors have also launched an investigation of Tezcan for "insulting the president" under Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code, which says that anyone who “casts aspersions on the President” faces one to four years in prison, with greater penalties for doing so publicly or through the media.

'Shame on the main opposition'

Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin criticized Tezcan on Monday, tweeting:

“Bulent Tezcan’s rhetoric of hatred is a badge of shame for the main opposition. This is not politics, but rather hostility towards the nation’s will.”

Deputy Prime Minister and government spokesman Bekir Bozdag brought up the issue when speaking to reporters after Monday's Cabinet Meeting.

"If there was a fascist or a dictator in Turkey, Bulent Tezcan could not have said such a sentence. He could not even have thought of such a sentence."

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu also criticized Tezcan's remarks, saying insults against the president "are indeed against those who elected him."

He stressed that the public elected the president, adding that "they have trusted him for the last 11 elections."

Tezcan's remarks are not covered under "freedom of thought and expression," according to Erdogan’s Tuesday letter of complaint.

The letter pointed to what it called a CHP campaign "to create a dictatorial image" of Erdogan.