Turkish prosecutors launch an investigation into the head of Turkey’s main opposition party after he called President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a “tin-pot dictator.”
Kemal Kilicdaroglu was speaking out against the detention of Turkish academics last week over a petition condemning the military crackdown in the Kurdish-dominated southeast, just days after Erdogan threatened the signatories.
“Academics who express their opinion are being detained, one by one, because of a tin-pot dictator,” Kilicdaroglu told a congress of his Republican People’s Party (CHP) at the weekend.
“How dare you (Erdogan) send police to these peoples’ doors and have them detained.”
“Tell us, tin-pot dictator, what do honor and pride mean to you? Either you maintain your impartiality and get respect or I will remind you every day what honor and pride mean.”
The chief prosecutor’s office in Ankara launched the probe against Kilicdaroglu on charges of “openly insulting the president,” the official Anatolia new agency reports.
The crime is punishable by up to four years in prison.
— AFP
Leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kilicdaroglu, delivers a speech during the 35th General Assembly of the party in Ankara, on January 16, 2016. (AFP/Adem Altam)
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