Erdoğan’s son: ‘When my father was jailed, no European politician had any concern for him’
Bilal Erdoğan, son of Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, reacted against the stance of European countries against Turkey after a diplomatic tension between Turkey and Holland emerged last weekend.
Erdoğan’s son said: “When Tayyip Erdoğan was jailed (back in 1999), did any politician from Europe knock on his door with concern? But when the terrorists were jailed, all ambassadors of European countries kept coming to the courthouses in crowds.”
Shortly after he had completed his term as the mayor of İstanbul under his party then (Virtue Party), Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had been convicted, in 1999, for ‘inciting hatred based on religious differences’ by citing a poem during a public speech he delivered in 1997 in Siirt province.
In his speech in 1997, Erdoğan had read to the crowd a poem by a nationalist poet, Ziya Gökalp, which read as: "Our minarets are our bayonets, Our domes are our helmets, Our mosques are our barracks. We will put a final end to ethnic segregation. No one can ever intimidate us.
If the skies and the ground were to open against us. If floods and volcanoes were to burst, We will not turn from our mission. My reference is Islam. If I am not able to speak of this, What is the use of living?"
Though convictions against him on citing this particular poem were reverted twice, he nevertheless ended up having to serve four months in prison.