Ankara – An opposition lawmaker has filed a legal complaint against Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accusing him of inciting racial hatred for saying people had insulted him in the past by claiming he was of Georgian or Armenian descent.
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Hursit Gunes filed the criminal complaint with court officials Wednesday.
In an interview on NTV television late Tuesday, ahead of Sunday’s presidential elections in which he is a candidate, the prime minister said: “They have said so many things about me. Some said I was Georgian. One said – begging your pardon – even uglier things, that I was Armenian.”
Erdogan has also faced accusations that he is propagating sectarian divisions and engaging in rhetoric bordering on anti-Semitism by comparing Israel to Hitler.