The mosque in Duisburg's Marxloh district is one of the largest in Germany. Thousands of Muslims come here every day to pray together and break their fast. Most of them hail from Turkeyand are descendants of laborers who came to work in this industrial region in North Rhine-Westphalia in the 1960s. Outside the mosque, between the large white tents of the traditional Ramadan bazaar, there is a joyful atmosphere, the smell of kebab meat hangs in the air, dates, sweet dough balls and fried fish are on offer.

Everyday life goes on here, people tell DW, as they are relatively unaffected by events in Turkey, where tens of thousands have been demonstrating across the country against the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu. The Turkish government and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are under massive pressure.

But the people in Duisburg would rather not talk about politics. Only Selim, who has come to the mosque with his two young sons, speaks out. 

"Erdogan runs a state that has a lot of problems. Of course it's difficult, no politician always gets everything right," says Selim, who was born in Germany and has lived in Duisburg for ten years. "But I'm waiting to see someone else come along who handles things better than he does. Erdogan stands for stability, there is democracy, and in the end, he has always been right. And why is Erdogan being attacked now in the first place, if it was the judiciary that had Imamoglu arrested?" 

Support for Imamoglu in Germany

The city of Essen is only a half-hour drive from Duisburg. Essen is a stronghold of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP party. In the last presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey two years ago, the AKP garnered 80% of the votes of Turkish people living here — the highest in all of Germany.

Imammoglu's party also has an office here. The regional CHP Essen e.V. organized a demonstration against Imamoglu's arrest in Essen's city center last Friday. Hundreds of protesters marched with banners in German and Turkish reading "Justice for Imamoglu" and "You are not alone."

"We organized the demonstration within 24 hours because it had to happen quickly to send a clear signal. And, of course, we also want the protests to attract attention in Germany and among politicians here," the deputy chairwoman of CHP Essen, Hülya Coskun, tells DW.

In Turkey, it is mainly young people who are fearlessly taking to the streets, and in Germany, too, more and more young men and women are getting involved with the CHP party.

Like 18-year-old student Serhat Kerem Bagci, chairman of the CHP youth organization in Düsseldorf. 

"In the last two days, the number of our members has doubled," Bagci says. "My phone is ringing all the time, you can tell that people want to make a difference, to change something. Even in Turkey, reports on our protests have been posted and that motivates people there too."

Some Imamoglu supporters have even traveled to Turkey to participate in the demonstrations there. And the Essen CHP group is already planning the next protest action, possibly to coincide with the CHP party congress on April 6. Coskun says many of them no longer fear reprisals when they travel back to Turkey.

"A relative of ours was recently detained and has now been released. But we have crossed that line, we are no longer afraid," she says. "Of course, something can always happen, but what is the alternative? If we don't say anything, everything will get worse. We want to fight for our rights and our democracy."

Polarization is also on the rise in Germany

Caner Aver is a social scientist with the Center for Turkish Studies and Integration Research in Essen and is currently writing his doctoral thesis on the mobility of academics of Turkish origin. 

"German Turks tend to be more conservative. A large number of people of Turkish origin live in the Ruhr region, and we also observe the rifts between supporters of Turkey's opposition and the government among German Turks," Aver says.

He adds that this rift runs right through his own family, too, which is why many avoid talking about politics altogether now. However, Aver notes a change in attitude: "Imamoglu's arrest has strengthened solidarity with the CHP candidate, both in Turkey and, to a lesser extent, in Germany too."

Aver does not believe that the German-Turkish protests will have a major impact on developments in Turkey. For that to happen, he says, the demonstrations would have to continue in large numbers and for several weeks to exert pressure on the German government, which in turn might increase the pressure on Turkey.

It is a bad time for such a strategy, however, as the German government is currently in transition. Aver also warns that the personal risk of making overly critical statements in public and on social media is high. For individuals who do so, it can't be ruled out that they might be arrested should they travel to Turkey. So many German Turks would rather not get involved in Turkey's domestic political conflicts.

"We should rather look at Germany, at the developments that are here that affect our lives together," Aver suggests.

This article was originally written in German.

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