Turkey to take legal action against British daily The Times

Source : Xinhua | English.news.cn

ISTANBUL, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said here on Friday that legal action would be taken against British daily The Times and those who wrote an open letter ad criticizing him for Turkish police violence during the Gezi park unrest in Turkey.

Erdogan said in Istanbul: "These are people who have rented out their minds. If they were sincere about democracy they would not act so immorally as to call a prime minister who was elected by receiving 50 percent of the vote a dictator."

"There are such media groups in Turkey that do every kind of defamation. How can they defame us when they are jailed? They are doing it because they do not know Turkey. The Times rents its page, this is their lack of morality," he added.

A group of internationally renowned artists and scholars condemned the Turkish authorities' heavy-handed crackdown on the Gezi park protests in the full-page letter published on July 24 in British broadsheet The Times, addressed to Erdogan.

The signatories, including figures known for their activism such as Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, Ben Kingsley and movie director David Lynch, described the Turkish government as "a dictatorial rule" and slammed Erdogan's uncompromising stance regarding the protesters' demands.

The prime minister's orders "led to the deaths of five innocent youths," the letter said, adding that he might be called to render account to the European Court of Human Rights for the police's violence.

They also compared the counter-rallies organized by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to the annual Nuremberg rallies organized by the Nazis.