An administrative inquiry for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been launched into the incoming Republican People’s Party (CHP) mayor of İzmir’s Torbalı district due to his alleged remarks on the day he took over the municipality from the ruling party mayor, the Diken news website reported.
According to an Interior Ministry statement, CHP Mayor Ramazan İsmail Uygur made remarks insulting Erdoğan and threatening the former mayor during the handing over ceremony.
Turkey’s Ministry of Interior Affairs last month dismissed a local mayor from the main opposition CHP after he was convicted of insulting the president, considered a crime under the law.
Hüseyin Sarı, the mayor of the Erdek district of Balıkesir province in western Turkey, was handed a sentence of 11 months, 20 days for insulting the president. The Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the conviction in December 2018, but rather than imposing the prison sentence ruled for the deprivation of certain of his civil rights. The mayor was subsequently dismissed from office by the ministry.
Insulting the president calls for a sentence of between one and four years, according to the Turkish Penal Code. Hundreds of people in Turkey, including even high school students, have faced charges of insulting President Erdoğan. (SCF with turkishminute.com)
