Turkish President Erdogan Files Criminal Complaint Against Dutch Leader Geert Wilders For Posting A Cartoon Of Him In Twitter 

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has filed a complaint against leading Dutch politician Geert Wilders for posting a cartoon of him on Twitter, Turkish state news agency Anadolu reported.

Erdogan’s lawyer Huseyin Aydin filed a criminal complaint to the Ankara prosecutor’s office for “insulting the president,” a punishable under Turkish law.

On Saturday (24 October), Wilders shared a cartoon picture of Erdogan wearing a bomb-resembling hat on his head with the caption “terrorist”.

Erdogan already hit back at Wilders over the cartoon this weekend, saying: “There is this so-called Dutch deputy who speaks ill of us. Unlike him, we don’t condone racism, and fascists have no place in Turkey.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu also condemned the cartoon, saying that “the racist losers of Europe have shown their true colours when faced with reality.”

Turkey’s pro-government mouthpiece Daily Sabah published a front-page editorial on Monday calling Wilders and Macron “the two faces of hatred, racism in Europe”.

Wilders , who is the Leader of the Party for Freedom that he founded it in 2006, also served as the parliamentary leader of his party in the House of Representatives.

“In the Netherlands, we consider freedom of expression as the highest good. And cartoons are part of that, including cartoons of politicians,” Rutte told reporters.

Wilders has often advocated that the values of liberal democracy are inherently in conflict with those of Islam and immigrants from majority-Muslim nations.

Wilders has called for banning the Quran, taxing the hijab, shutting down all mosques, sealing off Dutch borders to Muslim migrants and withdrawal of Netherlands out of the European Union.