Criminal complaint to be filed over mayor’s controversial remarks

HATAY

The governor’s office of the southern province of Hatay will file a criminal complaint against the mayor of the province for his remarks about Syrian migrants, the Deputy Interior Minister İsmail Çataklı has said.

“Hatay Metropolitan Mayor Lütfü Savaş tried to provoke our nation by openly lying that three out of four children born in Hatay are Syrians. The rate of Syrian babies born in Turkey is 8 percent, while it is one in four in Hatay,” Çataklı said on Twitter.

“Being racist by lying on the numbers is exactly the habit of a fascist mentality,” the senior official noted, adding that the Hatay Governor’s Office will file a criminal complaint against him.

Savaş, a politician from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said that three out of every four babies born in the province were Syrian and claimed that the city would be handed over to a Syrian mayor within 12 years if no action was taken.

He also said that Syrian women give birth to a child every year and that there is a population explosion in polygamous families.

According to official data, 500,000 Syrians are living in the province, which has a population of 1.6 million, in which the mayor claims that the unofficial number of Syrians is climbing over 800,000.