Sigmar Gabriel says Germany and the EU should back "democratically minded" Turks who oppose Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The foreign minister says the Turkish president's followers have threatened his wife.
Image: Reuters/H. Hanschke
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At a campaign event for his Social Democrats (SPD) on Tuesday, Sigmar Gabriel let loose onTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "More than half the country is democratically minded," the foreign minister said. "They didn't support him. I believe that many in Turkey are counting on Europe and Germany supporting Turkish democracy and not looking on helplessly."
In recent months, relations have deteriorated sharply between Germany and Turkey, countries allied in their NATO partnership but increasingly in little else. For his part, Erdogan recently urged Germans of Turkish ancestry to boycott Gabriel's SPD and Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) - parties he described as "enemies of Turkey" - in September's Bundestag elections.
Erdogan made the issue more personal at the weekend when he said that Gabriel, foreign minister since early this year, was too junior to address Turkey's president, telling the top German diplomat to "know his limits."
In comments broadcast by news channel NTV, Gabriel said Erdogan's words "had apparently led some to feel motivated to try to threaten and harass my wife" in phone calls to the dental surgery where she works. "Of course, this is a terrible outcome," he said without giving further details.
'An intensive dialogue'
Erdogan has accused Germany of providing aid and comfort to disparate factions that oppose him, some of which he says participated in an apparent coup attempt against him last summer. The president has cast a rather wide net in his pursuit of dissidents, arresting more than 50,000 people in Turkey since the failed coup attempt.
A German journalist with dual Turkish citizenship, a German human rights activist and a translator have all languished for months in Erdogan's prisons. In an interview with the Rheinische Post published on Tuesday, shortly before a German ambassador was set to be allowed to visit the prisoners - which should be legally guaranteed - Gabriel demanded further "proceedings that follow the rule of law, and their release."
Ankara demands extradition of Turkish-German writer
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Justice Minister appeals to EU
Last week, another German writer with Turkish citizenship, Dogan Akhanli, was arrested in Spain. It transpired that Turkey had issued an Interpol warrant for his arrest, prompting further tension in Germany. "Within the EU, we must at the very least begin an intensive dialogue about how we deal with arrest warrants from Turkey," German Justice Minister Heiko Maas - another SPD politician - told newspapers belonging to the Funke media group in an interview for print publication on Wednesday.
The arrests, top-level war of words and personal threats come as German politicians have watched cars burn in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia's Ruhrgebiet. On Tuesday night, the Bundestag deputy Michelle Müntefering, the wife of former SPD leader Franz Müntefering, saw her personal automobile and a campaign car lent to her by the party go up in flames in front of her house in Herne, a city of more than 150,000 people that borders Gelsenkirchen, Dortmund and Bochum. Police suspect arson and have not ruled out a political motive in the case of Müntefering's car - nor in three incidents when CDU campaign vehicles were burned in the city in April, May and June.
Critical caricatures from Turkey
How far do cartoonists dare to go in Turkey, as free press is increasingly muzzled in the country? The Caricatura Gallery in Kassel shows a few examples of their work in a new exhibition.
Image: Caricatura/Ramize Erer
A dumbfounded Angela Merkel
In 2015, the cover of the Turkish satire magazine LeMan depicted the German chancellor with a puzzled look on her face, sitting next to the Turkish President Erdogan wearing a sultan's attire. She wonders, "Where in the world have I landed?" LeMan is one of Istanbul's three leading satire magazines. Turkey's Prime Minister Davutoglu once called it "immoral."
Image: LeMan/Caricatura
Imprisoned activists
The failed coup in July 2016 fundamentally changed Turkey. Since then, 150,000 people have suddenly lost their positions and 40,000 have been imprisoned - journalists, authors, activists. Many of them are held in detention awaiting a trial that's never held. The drawing shown above, by 66-year-old cartoonist Izel Rozental, dealt with this issue in August 2016.
Image: Rozental/Caricatura
Gülen is everywhere
Erdogan has accused Fethullah Gülen of plotting the attempted coup, and has since persecuted alleged members of the exiled cleric's movement. Cartoonist Yigit Özgür has caricatured the fact that many Turks believe Erdogan's exaggerated blanket accusations: One man says, "90 percent of all water melons are said to be Gülen followers." "Hmmm, could be," replies the other.
Image: Özgür/Caricatura
Critical voices unwanted
With 51.3 percent Yes votes, the constitutional referendum held in April broadened Erdogan's powers. During the demonstrations ahead of the referendum, the media was not allowed to freely cover supporters of the opposition's No - "Hayir" - position. This led Ipek Özsüslü to draw this cartoon in March. "Your resistance is calcified," says the plumber with a Hayir on his bottom.
Image: Özsüslu/Caricatura
The interests of the US
Among the works on show at the exhibition "Schluss mit Lustig" (Get Serious), Erdogan is not the only one targeted by Turkish cartoonists. This drawing criticizes Trump's "Muslim travel ban." Referring to US soldiers, the child asks, "When will we finally expell them, papa?" The father darkly replies, "When our oil is all used up."
Image: Karabulat/Caricatura
Sex = taboo
As one of the rare female cartoonists in Turkey, Ramize Erer addresses feminist topics and breaks taboos surrounding sex. She depicts explicit female sexuality, often offending the country's conservatives. One of her recurring characters is the busty, men-devouring "bad girl." Sexuality is one of the biggest taboos in Turkey.
Image: Caricatura/Ramize Erer
The state of the world
Artist Mehmet Cagcag shows his views of the current state of the planet with this drawing: Dynamite is attached to world clocks, and from Baghdad to Athens, from Berlin to France, international cities are ticking bombs. The cartoonist does not reveal when and if they'll actually explode.
Image: Cagcag/Caricatura
Third Bosphorus Bridge
With his drawing from 2014, Murat Basol reacts to the then-being-built third bridge over the Bosphorus. Unlike Erdogan, the cartoonist does not see the bridge linking the Asian and European sides of Istanbul as a demonstration of Turkey's progress, but rather as a polluting construction project that will lead to more traffic and exhaust fumes.
Image: Bazol/Caricatura
Searching for free spaces
Free spaces are no longer available everywhere in Turkey; one has to look for them and even fight for them. That's the idea transmitted by Zeynep Özatalay's cartoon. The authors, musicians and painters depicted in this drawing succeed in pushing back the void. The cartoon was published in the newspaper BirGün, an open critic of Erdogan's party, the AKP.
