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Muslim Spy Scandal Deepens Rift Between Germany and Turkey
[Sputnik] Relations between Germany and Turkey have hit a new low after the German authorities withdrew legal cooperation when it emerged that a group of imams had been spying on teachers and passing on names of alleged supporters of exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen to Turkish officials.The latest allegations concern reports that the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution in North Rhine-Westphalia found that imams at the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB) had passed on the names of some 28 alleged supporters of exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen to Turkish officials at their consulates in Cologne, Düsseldorf and Munich. These included a group of teachers in German state schools, which provide Islamic religious education. Federal officials, January 24, announced the ending of an agreement brokered in 1974 between Germany and Turkey to mutual assistance on criminal matters. It followed allegations that Erdogan's government was using the pact to pursue Gulen followers in Germany. The latest deterioration in relations between Ankara and Berlin will put further strain on the controversial EU-Turkey migrant deal Merkel brokered in an effort to stem the flow of migrants entering into Europe via Turkey. Germany to Scrap 'Lese Majeste' Law after Turkey Row [AnNahar] The German government voted Wednesday to scrap a "lese majeste" law that Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... had sought to employ against a popular German television satirist. Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as Mom... 's cabinet decided to abolish by January 1, 2018 the rarely enforced section of the criminal code that prohibits insulting organs or representatives of foreign states. "The idea of 'lese majeste' dates back to a long-gone era, it no longer belongs in our criminal law," said Justice Minister Heiko Maas. "The regulation is obsolete and unnecessary." Maas said heads of state and government would still be able to defend themselves against slander and defamation "but no more or less so than any other person." Erdogan had launched a criminal complaint under the law -- which carries up to three years' jail -- against German TV comic Jan Boehmermann, who had insulted him in a so-called "defamatory poem". In the poem, broadcast in March last year, Boehmermann had accused Erdogan of bestiality and watching child porn, while gleefully admitting that he was flouting legal limits to free speech as a deliberate provocation. The row badly soured Berlin-Ankara relations at a time when ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... was vital to European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... plans to stop the mass flow of Merkel then authorized criminal proceedings against Boehmermann, in a decision that appalled rights groups. At the same time she said the article should be removed from Germany's legal code, a move that still requires parliamentary approval. Prosecutors had launched an investigation against Boehmermann but dropped the case last October. Posted by: Pappy 2017-01-26 |
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