Columnist to stand trial for calling Ankara Mayor “Armenian”

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish-Armenian columnist Hayko Bagdat will be on trial for jokingly calling the Mayor of Ankara “Armenian” in a series of tweets in March that the mayor deemed “insulting,” Today’s Zaman reports.

The first hearing of the trial is scheduled to take place on Monday, September 28, Bagdat wrote in a tweet on Saturday. “It is official, they gave the capital to an Armenian. What a shame!” Bagdat wrote in one of his tweets. He also added the hashtag “melihgokcekermeniymis” (Melih Gokcek turned out to be Armenian) to his tweets, which Gokcekreferenced in his lawsuit.

Bagdat was mocking Gokcek for questioning Cem Ozdemir, a German politician of Turkish origin, on Twitter about whether he was an Armenian, after Ozdemir called on Turkey to recognize the killings of Armenians during the last years of the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

Bagdat then announced the lawsuit on Twitter, saying: "Turns out Melih Gokcek sued me demanding TL 10,000 for calling him Armenian. We are going to have so much fun."

In a petition to the court, Gokcek's lawyer said his client was insulted by Bagdat's tweets, apparently claiming that the word “Armenian” meant “disgusting.”

Bagdat then announced the lawsuit on Twitter, saying: "Turns out Melih Gokceksued me demanding TL 10,000 for calling him Armenian. We are going to have so much fun."

In July, the columnist filed a counterclaim against Gokcek, saying the mayor's argument in the petition to the court that the word “Armenian” was an insult amounted to an open assault on his personal rights and dignity.