Simon Cekem, a lawyer from the Istanbul Armenian community, submitted a petition to the Istanbul prosecutor general’s office regarding the Muslim cleric who said ‘Armenian progenies’ in derogatory term during his sermon in an Istanbul mosque, reports Ermenihaber.

In his petition, the Istanbul Armenian lawyer demanded from the prosecutor's office that this Muslim cleric be penalize for inciting hatred and enmity among the people, and for discrimination, humiliation, insult, and threat.

Cekem said in his petition: "These words uttered by the suspect about the Armenian nationality, of which I am a member, incite hatred, discrimination, and enmity in the society. Overtly discriminatory and hateful words are a crime based on hate speech."

The Istanbul Armenian lawyer added that what happened fits into Article 216/2 of the Turkish Criminal Code, and is punishable by imprisonment from six months to one year.

As reported earlier, during a prayer service in a mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, Muslim cleric Murat Gundogdu called on the faithful to be armed on the day of the presidential runoff election this Sunday and, also, used the expression "Armenian progenies" in a derogatory way.

It is clear from the video recordings made on the smartphone that Gundogdu had said as follows, in particular: "For 80 years, what has this country suffered from you, wheat has it suffered from the Armenian progenies? We have so many martyrs.”

From another video, it becomes clear that a faithful reacted negatively to Gundogdu's call to prepare the weapons and a fight started in the mosque.

The Directorate of Religious Affairs in Turkey announced that it has launched an investigation into Gundogdu's call to prepare the weapons. But there has been no official comment yet on the aforesaid hate speech against Armenians.