Criminal complaint against Ümit Özdağ, who threatened Garo Paylan

* Photo: AA - Archive

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The Human Rights Association (İHD) Commission Against Racism and Discrimination has filed a criminal complaint against İstanbul MP Ümit Özdağ, who threatened Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Diyarbakır MP Garo Paylan over his remarks about the Armenian genocide.

The petition of criminal complaint submitted by İHD's Eren Keskin, Jiyan Kaya, Güllistan Yarkın, Meral Çıldır and Ayşe Günaysu has requested that a lawsuit be filed against Ümit Özdağ as per the Article 106 (Threat) and Article 216 (Provoking the public to hatred and hostility) of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) as well as on charge of "discrimination" as per the Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

After Paylan criticized the fact that there are still streets and schools that are named after Talat Pasha, who was the Ottoman Empire's minister of interior during the Armenian genocide, Ümit Özdağ said:

"Impudent provocateur man. If you are not content, go to hell. Talat Pasha did not expel the patriotic Armenians, but expelled the ones who stabbed us in the back like you. When the time comes, you will also have a Talat Pasha experience and you should have it."

After Paylan responded to this tweet as well, Özdağ then called Paylan "a remnant and a supporter" of the Tashnag, an Armenian insurgent group in the Ottoman Empire, the ASALA, a militant group active in the 1970s and the 1980s and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

"You massacred hundreds of thousands of Turks. You stabbed our army in the back. Those who did it suffered the punishment of it. No one touched patriotic Armenians," Ümit Özdağ wrote further, calling Garo Paylan a "vicious enemy of the Turkish nation."

Quoting these remarks in its petition of criminal complaint, the İHD has said that Özdağ's statement constitutes a crime as per the Articles 106 and 216 of the TCK and violates the Article 14 of the ECHR.

What happened?

Independent MP Ümit Özdağ threatened Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) MP Garo Paylan over his remarks about the Armenian Genocide.

On April 24 Genocide Remembrance Day, Paylan criticized the fact that there still streets and schools that are named after Talat Pasha, who was the Ottoman Empire's minister of interior during the genocide.

"After 106 years, we walk on streets named after Talat Pasha, the architect of the Genocide. We educate our children at schools named after Talat Pasha," he wrote on Twitter. He likened naming the schools after him in Turkey to naming schools and streets after Hitler in Germany.

Quoting his tweet, Özdağ wrote, "Impudent provocateur man. If you are not content, go to hell. Talat Pasha didn't expel patriotic Armenians but those who stabbed us in the back like you. When the time comes, you'll also have a Talat Pasha experience and you should have it."

In response to this tweet, Paylan called him a "fascist" and wrote: "The remnant of the mentality that obliterated my people says, 'We'll do it again.' You hit us and didn't we die? We died. But those left behind never give up the struggle for justice. And they won't give up after me as well."

Indepdendent MP Ümit Özdağ then called HDP MP Garo Paylan a remnant and a supporter of the Tashnag, an Armenian insurgent group in the Ottoman Empire, the ASALA, a militant group active in the 1970s and the 1980s and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

"You massacred hundreds of thousands of Turks. You stabbed our army in the back. Those who did it suffered the punishment of it. No one touched patriotic Armenians," Özdağ wrote, calling Paylan a "vicious enemy of the Turkish nation." (EKN/SD)