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German Foreign Ministry announced on Twitter that the Turkish Embassy was summoned to the ministry on Tuesday.
Mustafa Açıkgöz, an MP from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), called on 13 January for the annihilation of all those opposing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Germany, during a speech at a mosque in Neuss.
Targeting those supporting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and members of the Gülen movement, a religious organisation led by Fethullah Gülen, Açıkgöz made his speech based on the upcoming election campaign.
Following the speech in the country’s western city, the German Foreign Ministry shared a tweet warning the Turkish representatives that his words were unacceptable.
“Today we invited the Turkish embassy to an interview. Appearances like that of a Turkish member of parliament in Neuss must not be repeated. Hate speech has no place in Germany,” said German Foreign Ministry.
“In doing so, we made it clear that foreign election campaign events must be approved by us beforehand,” also said the ministry in another tweet adding that if Turkish representatives do not play by the rules, “they will consider the consequences”.
Germany, which is home to 3.5 million Turkish nationals, is a European hotspot for the Turkish elections, and is inevitably affected by political tensions in Turkey.
Meanwhile Deutsche Welle reported that security offices have received numerous complaints about the Turkish MP’s speech.
Lamya Kaddor, Green Party MP shared a tweet and said that these activities could lead to radicalisation and should not be allowed to take place in Germany. “The AKP is campaigning in our country, among other places in DITIB [Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs] communities. They want to hunt down the ‘terrorists’… We should prohibit #DITIB hatred and incitement as election campaign rhetoric of a foreign state,” said Kaddor.
Some social media users, such as political analyst Prof. Burak Çopur said that these actions provoke people to commit crime. Çopur added that the German police would follow up on this issue. “No one can come and speak in Germany with a mafia-like authoritarian tongue like in the Middle East”.
Lawyer Mehmet Kılıç stated that it is a crime in Germany to refer to a section of society with grudge and hatred, an action that can hold a prison sentence of up to three years. According to Kılıç the German authorities may announce Açıkgöz as “persona non grata” based on the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties signed in 1969.
According to a secret communiqué obtained by Nordic Monitor, “there has been no letup in the aggressive, clandestine spying activities by Turkish agents on German territory that target critics and opponents of the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.”
