Turkish President Erdogan files complaint against Dutch MP Wilders

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has lodged a criminal complaint against Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders over an insulting tweet.

The criminal complaint was filed on Tuesday by Erdogan's lawyer Huseyin Aydin with the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office.

Erdogan's petition argues that the complaint made under Turkish law is valid as the crime in question is against the Turkish president. It also cites decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights that support that the protection of the reputation and a person right to privacy are legitimate grounds to limit freedom of expression.

"Fascism is not in our book; it's in your book. Social justice is in our book," Erdogan said on Sunday at a meeting of his governing Justice and Development (AK) Party in the eastern Malatya province, calling Wilders a "fascist".

His remarks came after Party for Freedom leader Wilders, known for his anti-Muslim stance, shared on Twitter an insulting cartoon of the Turkish president.

Turkey's top diplomat Mevlut Cavusoglu has also denounced the cartoon.

In September, Dutch judges upheld Geert Wilders' conviction for collectively insulting Moroccan people at a rally, in what the firebrand far-right leader branded a "political trial" by a "banana republic."

The appeals court threw out, however, a charge of inciting discrimination over a 2014 gathering where the peroxide-blonde Wilders asked supporters if they wanted "fewer or more Moroccans" and the crowd chanted "Fewer! Fewer!".

A lower court had convicted Wilders – whose Freedom Party is the second biggest in the Dutch parliament – of both group insult and inciting discrimination in 2016 but he had appealed the verdict.

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