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| Europe |
| Turkish Asylum Requests in Germany More than Double this Year |
| 2016-11-19 |
| [AnNahar] More than 4,400 Turkish citizens have applied for asylum in Germany this year, the government said Friday, with numbers up since a failed coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Among them are several Turkish military officers stationed at German's Ramstein NATO air base, national news agency DPA has reported. Berlin-Ankara relations have been badly strained by concerns over the Erdogan government's stance on civil rights, especially its sweeping crackdown against opposition lawmakers, journalists and other critical voices in the wake of the July coup attempt. On Friday, Germany's Office for Migration and Refugees said that this year it had received 4,437 political asylum requests to the end of October from Turks, compared to 1,767 during all of last year. Numbers had steadily ticked up from 275 in July to 485 in October, it said, cautioning however that the rise could not be tied directly to the coup attempt, given the long time lags for asylum applications. German conservative lawmaker Stephan Mayer, who sits on parliament's interior affairs committee, said "we must presume that the number of Turks who will request political asylum in Germany will rise further". He was critical of the foreign ministry for openly stating recently that Germany was open to granting refuge to Turkish citizens who need it. - 'Get rid of the opposition' - Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had said last week Berlin wants to "help persecuted scientists, cultural workers, journalists, who can no longer work in Turkey come to Germany to work". But Mayer, a member of the conservative Bavarian CSU party, told the Funke media group: "We don't solve Turkey's problems by inviting all citizens who are critical of the regime to request asylum here." "That's not a favour we should do for President Erdogan. Because that's exactly what he wants -- to get rid of the opposition." Developments in Turkey have a strong resonance in Germany, home to a three-million-strong ethnic Turkish population, the legacy of a massive "guest worker" programme in the 1960s and 70s. Turkish NATO Officers Ask for Asylum [AnNahar] A number of Turkish officers posted to NATO have asked for asylum in the member state countries in which they are serving, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said Friday. "It is right that some Turkish officers working in NATO command structure, some of them have requested asylum in the countries where they are working," Stoltenberg said in Brussels when asked about the issue. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #1 Hurry before Merkel gets the axe. |
| Posted by: Injun Bucket8891 2016-11-19 13:46 |