Erdoğan files complaint against Dutch far-right politician Wilders

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

The president's lawyer Hüseyin Aydın filed the complaint over Wilders' insulting contents targeting Erdoğan.

In a criminal complaint submitted to the Office of the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor, Aydın called the leader of Party for Freedom "suspect" and said his insulting remarks are "criminal libel" and "cannot be evaluated under freedom of express."

"Suspect Wilders, in his content targeting our first [directly] elected [by public] president, used expressions insulting the honor and dignity of our president, and committed the crime publicly by targeting his personality, dignity and reputation," it was stated in the complaint.

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

His remarks came after Wilders, known for his anti-Islam stance, shared on Twitter an insulting cartoon of the Turkish president which was denounced by several Turkish officials, including Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.