Friday 5 August 2016

Germany Calling

What a sign of the times we live in - life elective and President of Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan chose to organise a rally ostensibly in support of democracy, err no, well actually err, himself. Nothing new about that as he regularly organises these rallies, which are covered slavishly by a now non-free Turkish press.

Turkeys Cologne Rally ....

But this time he looked to the newly occupied areas of his new Ottoman empire ... In this case it was Almanya Arama (Germany calling) to the AKP. So it was organised in Cologne, right in the heart of Markel's Germany (and incidentally the scene of a mass sex attack by Muslim men earlier this year).

The rally was attended by 35,000 - 40,000 Germans (sorry, Turks), out of the 3-4 million citizens who can vote in Turkey for his AKP party, and support him, but they were unable to see their hero, as at the last minute Germany's Constitutional Court banned the speech from being broadcast.

They claimed public order concerns, but lets be frank, it was fears that it simply reminds an already uneasy section of Germans, that the fifth column is amongst them ... there are elections in Germany soon, and Mrs Merkel's party (along with her allies) are bracing themselves for a backlash over the immigration policy Mrs Merkel has reaffirmed only recently.

Gulistan Gul a Turk who represented a small secular minority counter demonstration, those few Turks not supporting the AKP, said it was crucial to speak out against Mr Erdogan.

"He is trying to have sole power over the people there," he said. "And we are against that dictatorship. The Kurds are oppressed, Armenian's are oppressed, other minorities and religions are oppressed." 

.... but his is a voice crying in the wilderness amongst both the Turks in Turkey and apparently in Germany.

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