Free Republic

A Dutch-Turkish journalist has been detained in Turkey after posting tweets critical of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, her newspaper said. Ebru Umar wrote a column for the Dutch Metro newspaper criticising President Erdogan's clampdown on dissent. Since 2014, prosecutors have launched cases against more than 1,800 journalists for insulting Mr Erdogan. Last week, Germany allowed the prosecution of a prominent TV satirist for insulting Mr Erdogan to proceed. Jan Boehmermann had read a crude poem on TV, aimed at testing German law. Germany and the Netherlands have old lese-majeste laws against insulting the head of a friendly state. Both...

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has a great passion for mosques. Since he took power in Turkey, Mr. Erdogan has built 17,000 Islamic prayer sites. The largest in the world stands on the Camlica Hill, dominating the Asian side of Istanbul, where the East, in the words of Cocteau, extends to Europe “its old bejeweled hand”. The Turkish president is committed to the construction of mosques in European capitals as well. Erdogan seeks to create the image of an Islamic civilization on the rise once again with the Turks acting as the vanguard of this revival. Ten mosques have been financed by...

Christians in Turkey have become a tiny minority. The few remaining Christian churches in Anatolia are also on the path to total annihilation. Christians in Turkey have – throughout the centuries -- been turned into a tiny, dwindling minority. The remaining few Christian churches in Anatolia are also on the path to total annihilation. Hagia Sophia in Trabzon: Church-mosque-museum and now mosque again. The Hagia Sophia, Greek for “Holy Wisdom,” was one of the many historic Orthodox churches located in the city of Trabzon. ... The city of Trabzon .. is located in the ancient land of Pontos, in the...

A German comedian whose satirical poem about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has unleashed a bitter row about freedom of speech has decided to suspend his own TV show, he announced on his Facebook page on Saturday. Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday authorised criminal proceedings sought by Turkey against the popular comic Jan Boehmermann who could be convicted under the rarely-enforced section 103 of the criminal code -- insulting organs or representatives of foreign states. Merkel's decision has appalled rights bodies such as Human Rights Watch which on Saturday called on the German authorities to defend freedom of speech "even...

The center-left Social Democratic Party said on Tuesday that Germany should scrap a law against insulting foreign leaders — which has been used by the Turkish President to target a German comedian. “The honor of a head of state is just as important as the honor of a normal citizen,” SPD leader in the Bundestag (German parliament) Thomas Oppermann said in Berlin. SPD MPs are ready to repeal the paragraph banning insults against foreign leaders, Oppermann went on, calling it an “antiquated rule” that should not be updated but simply abolished. Changing the law would also allow the federal government...

German authorities are investigating comedian Jan Boehmermann for reciting a satire spoofing Turkey’s President Erdogan. They say they are offended by the comedian’s remarks. This once-democratic government is now enforcing the sharia and serving a vicious jihad dictator who has all but destroyed the modern advances Turkey made in the 20th century under Ataturk’s secularism. Further, the invasion of Germany (and Europe) was made possible by Erdogan — and now Germans can’t criticize him? Merkel should be thrown out on her considerable ass. She covers for Muslim refugee mass rapes. She continues to import these haters into Germany, and she...

BERLIN – Germany is considering a request from Turkey to prosecute a TV comedian who wrote a crude poem about the Turkish president, Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman said Monday. The request poses an awkward choice for the German leader as she relies on Turkey to reduce the influx of migrants to Europe. Turkey sent a diplomatic note making "a formal request for criminal prosecution" of comedian Jan Boehmermann, Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said. Seibert told reporters Monday that officials would take several days to decide whether to allow prosecutors to proceed in the case, but stressed that Merkel holds free...

Germany’s hippest young comedian faces a jail sentence of up to five years if Turkey decides to press charges over a poem he wrote insulting its head of state. Jan Böhmermann knew what he was doing when he read out a self-penned poem insulting Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan live on his late night show on Thursday evening. He introduced the piece by speaking directly to the Turkish president. “What I’m about to read is not allowed. If it were to be read in public — that would be forbidden in Germany,” Böhmermann said, before proceeding to perform his “smear...

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lost a German court battle against a top media boss Tuesday when his appeal in a bitter row over free speech was thrown out. Erdogan had sought a court order to stop the Axel Springer media group's chief Mathias Doepfner from repeating support for a TV satirist who crudely insulted the Turkish leader. After failing to get an injunction from a lower court last month, Erdogan also lost an appeal before the higher regional court in the western German city of Cologne. The judges said they considered Doepfner's letter of support "a permissible expression of...