CHP leader nets 10,000 legal complaints for naming Erdoğan ‘sham dictator’

ANKARA

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The number of legal complaints against main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaorğlu for “insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan” during two recent speeches and in his Twitter postings has reached 10,000.

Kılıçdaroğlu named Erdoğan a “sham dictator” during a speech at the Jan. 16 Republican People’s Party (CHP) congress, a weekly address to his party deputies three days later and postings the same day. 

“Would I call someone who admires Hitler, has polarized society and has turned the country into an inferno a peace envoy instead of a sham dictator?” Kılıçdaroğlu wrote. 

The Parliamentary Crimes Department of the Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s Office keeps receiving complaints on the matter, according to data gathered by Anadolu Agency. 

Some 5,600 of the complaints were placed in Ankara, while those in other provinces are also directed to the capital, it said. 

Complaints mainly come from ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputies, party members and some civil society organizations, it also said.  

Erdoğan himself has opened a lawsuit against Kılıçdaorğlu, demanding 100,000 Turkish Liras, or roughly $34,000, in compensation.