Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has filed a lawsuit against the Greek newspaper “Dimokratia” and four of its journalists in the Ankara prosecutor’s office.

According to a newspaper statement, “the litigation reached Greece and was notified through the judicial assistance process” and is specifically directed against the newspaper’s chief editor, Dimitris Rizoulis, the main columnist, Manolis Kottakis, and the two editorial directors, Andreas Kapsabelis and Georgios Patroudakis.

According to the newspaper, the Turkish president is seeking to sentence the journalists to prison for up to five years, while “this is the first time that a foreign head of state is targetting a Greek newspaper for political reasons”.

“Turkish prosecutor Erdinc Hakan Ozdambakoglu, after receiving a relevant lawsuit from the lawyer of the Turkish President Dr. Hussein Aydin accuses the four journalists of ‘the crime of insulting the president’, according to Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code.

The legal action against the journalists is due to a front page of September 18, 2020, entitled “siktir git” (F** You), which expressed outrage at a series of insulting reports by both Erdogan himself and his ministers or advisers during the period of the “Oruc Reis” illegal survey in the Aegean Sea.

“The most important thing of all is that the official legal text submitted to the Greek authorities is full of provocations and irredentist reports. On the one hand, the Aegean Sea is referred to as the “sea of ​​islands”, on the other hand, the Turkish side accuses the journalists of the “Dimokratia” of creating obstacles to Mr. Erdogan’s aspirations in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean.

“Dimokratia refuses to participate in the relevant legal proceedings based on Erdogan’s parody lawsuit and considers it an honour that the Turkish leadership characterises our newspaper as an obstacle to its expansionist and dangerous plans,” the newspaper said in a statement.