Opposition party leader detained over ‘insulting’ Erdoğan in Turkey

Turkish police have detained opposition Victory Party leader Ümit Özdağ over “insulting the President.” Özdağ faces investigation for his remarks that no Crusade in the last millennium “had done the damage to the Turkish nation and state that Erdoğan and the AKP have done.”

Monday January 20 2025 11:10 pm

Duvar English

Turkish police on Jan. 20 detained opposition Victory (Zafer) Party leader Ümit Özdağ in line with an investigation on the charge of “insulting” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Özdağ was detained while eating at a restaurant in Ankara and taken to Istanbul for testimony.

After his detention, the Victory Party called its partisans to gather in front of the Vatan police building in Istanbul.

Hukuksuzca gözaltına alınan Genel Başkanımız Sayın Prof. Dr. Ümit Özdağ, polis ekipleri eşliğinde İstanbul'a yola çıktı.

Tüm Zafer Partisi ve Ümit Özdağ destekçilerini saat 23.00'ten itibaren İstanbul Fatih İlçesi Vatan Emniyet Müdürlüğü Binası Önüne Davet Ediyoruz!

Genel… pic.twitter.com/bo1nJtXefj
— Zafer Partisi (@zaferpartisi) January 20, 2025

The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office on Jan. 20 launched an investigation against Özdağ for his remarks that no Crusade in the last millennium “had done the damage to the Turkish nation and state that Erdoğan and the AKP have done.”

Özdağ made these remarks during a party meeting with the provincial branch chairs held on Jan. 19 in the southern Antalya province.

“No Crusade could make the Turkish nation Deist, Atheist, Christian. During the Erdoğan era, large segments of the Turkish nation started to lose their faith in religion due to those who deceive them with Allah, and the rate of deists and atheists exceeded 16 percent,” he said.

“By distributing the state (sources) of the Turkish nation among religious cults, Erdoğan is harming the faith of the Turkish nation. By bringing millions of migrants and fugitives into Anatolia, he is destroying the culture of the Turkish nation,” he added.

Özdağ and his party are known for their harsh anti-immigrant stance.

“What is actually happening is an AKP fascism. As the Zafer Party, we will not normalize with this fascism like the main opposition (CHP). We will fight and we will win. Victory will belong to the Turkish state and the Turkish nation,” Özdağ noted.

In the 2023 general elections, the Victory Party received 2.23 percent of the votes but could not get a seat in the Parliament due to 7.5 percent electoral threshold.

Özdağ founded the party in 2021 after leaving the opposition İYİ (Good) Party.

Jan. 20 saw another crackdown wave of the Turkish government on the opposition.

Without a detention order, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) youth branch head Cem Aydın was taken to a courthouse by eight police officers to testify within the investigation launched against him for calling Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor Akın Gürlek “mobile guillotine.”

Then, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation into Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, from the CHP, for allegedly “threatening” Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor Akın Gürlek and his family while criticizing Aydın’s detention.