News / Germany

Turkish community in Germany to sue far-right lawmaker over abusive remarks

Friday, 16 February 2018 6:14 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 16 February 2018 7:25 AM ]

Member the Alternative for Germany (AfD) far-right party Andre Poggenburg speaks during the congress of the party in Hanover, northern Germany, on December 2, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

The three-million-strong Turkish community living in Germany is to evoke hate speech laws to sue a far-right lawmaker who earlier used abusive language to describe the Turkish Germans.

An organization representing the Turks called the Turkish Community in Germany announced on Thursday that it would be taking legal action against Andre Poggenburg, a senior member of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Poggenburg had on Wednesday called the Turks in Germany “camel drivers” who should return to their “mud huts and multiple wives.”

Gokay Sofuoglu, the chairman of the Turkish Community in Germany, said the organization would sue Poggenburg over the remarks.

“It’s high time Germans realize the danger coming from the far-right,” Sofuoglu told AP.

Poggenburg attacked the Turkish group for its earlier criticism of reported German plans for a new “homeland” ministry as part of a coalition deal between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and the Social Democrats (SPD).

“These camel drivers should go back to where they belong, far beyond the Bosphorus, to their mud huts and multiple wives,” Poggenburg said. He said Germany did not need advice on culture and history from Turks, who he said bore responsibility “for their own genocide,” a reference to the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in the World War I-era.

The far-right AfD, known for its extremist viewpoints on matters of policy, captured nearly 13 percent of the votes and almost 100 seats in parliament in general elections in Germany in September last year.

The latest controversy involving AfD came as Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim was due to meet Merkel in Berlin on Thursday in an attempt to improve weakened relations.

Protesters wear masks of German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as they protest in front of the Chancellery in Berlin, where the Turkish Prime Minister was expected for a visit, on February 15, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

German president against hate speech

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has said he condemns extremist politicians who make “ruthlessness and hatred...their strategy.”

“What I see are politicians who make a strategy out of excessive language, and their recklessness and hatred,” Steinmeier said in a speech on Thursday. “I only hope that citizens of this country do not allow themselves to be carried along.”

Last month, another lawmaker from Germany’s far-right AfD party faced a police investigation for social media posts deemed offensive to Muslims.

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