Angela Merkel faces calls to ban Erdoğan over jailed German journalist

German chancellor is under pressure to stop the Turkish President from entering the country while German-Turkish reporter Deniz Yücel is held in Istanbul prison

Angela Merkel’s government is under increasing pressure from German coalition and opposition parties to stand up to the Turkish President
Angela Merkel’s government is under increasing pressure from German coalition and opposition parties to stand up to the Turkish President

German chancellor Angela Merkel is facing calls to ban the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, from entering Germany while a German journalist continues to be held in an Istanbul prison.

Erdoğan, who campaigned in Germany in 2011 and 2014, was rumoured to be planning a political rally to secure the symbolically important diaspora vote before April’s referendum in Turkey on giving him greater powers.

But Merkel’s government is under increasing pressure from German coalition and opposition parties to stand up to the Turkish President after the Turkey correspondent of Die Welt newspaper, Deniz Yücel, last month became the first German citizen to be arrested as part of Erdogan’s crackdown on the press.

Ralf Jäger, the interior minister of North-Rhine Westphalia and a member of the Social Democratic party that forms a coalition with Merkel’s CDU, called on the government to “ensure that such rallies take place neither in North-Rhine Westphalia or elsewhere in Germany”. Stephan Mayer, of the Bavarian party CSU, said a Turkish president who imprisoned German journalists was “not welcome as a guest in Germany”.

Sevim Dağdelen, a Left party MP with Kurdish origins, said Merkel had “a political duty and the legal means to stop the Turkish head of state from campaigning on German soil for the abolition of democracy and the introduction of the death penalty”.

But on Wednesday Merkel’s spokesperson said a ban would send the wrong signal.

“The German government deplores the fact that freedom of speech and freedom of the press are currently limited in Turkey to an unacceptable degree,” spokesperson Steffen Seibert said. “If we deplore this in another country, then we should be even more alert to make sure that freedom of speech is respected, within the framework of the law, in our own country. We should demonstrate what we demand from others.”

In the referendum on 18 April, the Turkish public will vote on proposed changes that would boost the powers of the President, allowing Erdoğan to scrap the post of Prime Minister, control budgets, appoint more judges and stay in office for two more terms.

The support of the Turkish diaspora in Germany, a community of about 1.4 million people, holds an important symbolic significance to Erdoğan’s party.