Leading Turkish Paper Reporter Slams Erdogan’s Criticism of France Genocide Bill

Leading reporter of Turkish newspaper Hürriyet Yilmaz Özdil, who is known for his sharp criticism of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, in a Dec. 21 article called Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan “Allah’s idiot.”

Analyzing the French bill criminalizing denial of the Armenian Genocide, Erdogan’s statement “Let France speak of the crimes it carried out in Algeria and Rwanda,” Özdil writes: “Today Algeria and France are friendly countries. On the Algerian national football team, 17 of the players are French citizens. Both the giver and the receiver are happy — what business of yours is Algeria, you idiot of Allah? Answer why today Ayintab is called Gaziantep: Maraş is called Kahramanmaraş; and Urfa, Şanlıurfa.

“Who seized these cities by force? The Armenian who say ‘We were subjected to genocide’ or the Turkish soldiers in military uniform carrying out massacres? You are looking for shame in history, forgetting the history of your own people? That is the real shame. Did you not call Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk to you when he publicly stated the massacre of the Armenians and expel him from the country? Don’t the mayors you appointed travel in French cars? What boycott are you talking about?”