Merkel accepts Turkish request to prosecute German comedian over ‘insulting poem’
Source: Hurriyet Daily News
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on April 15 that she accepted Turkeys request to seek prosecution of German comedian Jan Boehmermann who recited a sexually crude poem about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on television.
Read more: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/merkel-accepts-turkish-request-to-prosecute-german-comedian-over-insulting-poem.aspx?pageID=238&nID=97856&NewsCatID=351
Germany will allow prosecution of a comedian who mocked the Turkish president, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said.
"The courts will have the final word," she told reporters. But Germany will now move to repeal a section of the penal code which criminalises alleged insults of foreign leaders, she said.
Turkey asked Germany to prosecute comedian Jan Boehmermann, who crudely mocked President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The next legal move is not yet clear.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36055488
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)christx30
(6,241 posts)DetlefK
(16,423 posts)And the article clearly states that they will modify that paragraph in the future.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,036 posts)They could even make it retroactive and explicitly excuse / block / pardon cases that occurred within the last year or three years or whatever.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(49,036 posts)Igel
(35,356 posts)In the US you can rewrite a law retroactively to exculpate but not incriminate.
If X was legal last year, it can't suddenly become illegal.
If X was illegal last year, it can become legal retroactively.
FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)The fact is, she accepted a foreign request to prosecute one of her own citizens that would not have faced any charges if she had said no.
It's totally in her power or there would have been no press conference or decision by her.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)What a coward!
That means she could have told him to sit and spin.
If the law were the law (or something that got enforced), more Germans would be in prison for publicly insulting world leaders. But that crappy excuse for a leader made a decision out of fear.
Angel Martin
(942 posts)of a bullshit law.
I wonder if anyone in Germany "insulted" George W Bush during his eight years in office ?
This is just craven. And Germany is supposed to be a reliable ally against ISIS ?
christx30
(6,241 posts)Germans that complain about Obama? And if they're not, you're right. This is cowardly as hell. Merkel caused a huge mess in her country. And she wants others to clean it up for her. And Boehmermann rattled the wrong cage. Ruffled the wrong feathers. He and his poem complicated things. He's gotta go down.
She has sunk to a low I didn't believe she could have. I wonder who will replace her once she gets trounced in this election.
Angel Martin
(942 posts)since he was so unpopular in Germany, and there were massive protests denouncing him, in not very polite terms.
Obama too, especially after NSA phone-gate.
Also, what about Putin ? Not everyone in Germany thinks he is wonderful, and they are not shy about saying it.
christx30
(6,241 posts)All anyone has to do is point to the lack of prosecutions for this "crime", and the case will be dismissed. It'll be shown as an attempt at a legal hit on someone who's words have made things inconvenient for the president. Merkel the fool, Merkel the coward is sucking up to a fascist. Erdoğan can't help who and what he is. I'm convinced that kind of tyrannical behavior is a mental deficiency. But Merkel is making a choice here. She's choosing political and diplomatic expediency over freedom of expression in her country. And this is not going to end well for Germany.
PersonNumber503602
(1,134 posts)christx30
(6,241 posts)It has been little used in recent years and is colloquially known as the "Shah law" among German lawyers after the Shah of Persia successfully brought a case against a Cologne newspaper in 1964.
A Swiss man living in Bavaria was also prosecuted under the article in 2007, after he posted offensive comments about the then-Swiss President, Micheline Calmy-Rey, on the internet, according to German and Swiss media
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36055488
FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)The problem she, herself, created by committing to a open door policy.
She fucked up her country, endangered her own citizens, and now is cracking down on speech. What a great leader.
iandhr
(6,852 posts)She has also now sent the message that Germany can be blackmailed.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,036 posts)It's an obscure bit of law that the article makes quite clear is going to be repealed.
No blackmail.
iandhr
(6,852 posts)He is trying to use the refuge crisis to extort Europe. He will think this a big victory and will use it to try and extract more concessions.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,036 posts)Further, it's hurting his international reputation, which is already rather low.
iandhr
(6,852 posts)I however am less optimistic.
Angel Martin
(942 posts)Are you kidding me ?
I'm sure they will repeal the law, but what happens after repeal, when the next person in Germany says something that offends Erdogan's lese-mageste ?
Erdogan is going to threaten a flood of refugees unless his critics in Germany are appropriately punished, law or not.
The German leadership has foolishly put themselves under the power of this vainglorious jackass. And now they are going to have to humour him.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,036 posts)Fact of the matter is that both the US and German economies grew more than they would have otherwise by using a pool of immigrant labor willing to do jobs that national citizens were very reluctant to do.
If you deport 11 million people to Latin America, the US economy would be sabotaged and many citizen's jobs would be lost as companies would go under.
But, if you read the excerpt in the OP, Merkel is opening up free speech. She is going to remove the law that gives her no choice but to allow the prosecutors to do their lawful duty to prosecute that particular kind of speech.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Schools, health care etc.
And is it a good idea to import an underclass with different cultural values?
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,036 posts)If people come in and work, as they do and they work hard, then they deserve social services. Especially schools.
Those exact same arguments were used against the Irish that came to America. "an underclass with different cultural values" (Catholicism, for one).
Prejudice against Irish Catholics contributed to the denial of care to the workers.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)That was true in the 1700s, 1800s, 1900s and today. The problem is NOT that Natural Born Citizens do NOT want these jobs, but refuse to take them at wages employers want to pay. This immigrants were a source of low pay workers that brought down the pay to other workers (and this more then anything else is the reason for the long history of hatred to whoever is immigrating).
The classic case is the workers brought in to do high tech work. High Tech business says they need these workers do to a shortage of workers, but the real problem is what those employers want to pay can NOT even pay for the collage loans high tech workers have to pay.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,036 posts)By being at least a little bit open to immigrants, Americans have benefited mightily.
I'm sure it is only a matter of time till the Turkish equivalents develop in Germany.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)One source of immigrants were African Slaves. Their importation was an economic GAIN for the country, through most such slaves did NOT think it helped them.
Another group that did NOT benefit from such immigration were Native Americans, those immigrants were taking lands from Natives till the 20th century. Now, most people on the frontier after after 1750 had been born in the US (or the American Colonies pre 1776), but a sizable number were immigrants from overseas. They replaced those pesty First Americans who just wanted to hunt buffalo with hard working farmers.
The US had an very advance set of rules regarding women in the workplace, till the Irish came in and undercut those practices starting in the 1830s. US skilled Iron workers were replaced by immigrants for the skill workers demanded higher pay and the employers refused to pay them.
As to your photos of successful immigrants, so what? There have always been cases of people being successful in any society and such individual success proves NOTHING. Individuals have always done well, even when the rest of society is dying. German industrialists did well under Hitler, does that prove Hitler was good for Germany? No. Werner von Braun became known as a top notch rocket scientist under Hitler, does that prove Hitler was good for Germany? Again NO. Kalashnikov was a top notch weapons maker, did that make the Soviet Union a good place to live? Again NO.
My point is you can NOT cite individuals when it comes to immigration, you have to look at groups. Most Economists are most concerned about the top 1% for that is who pays for their services (which is why most Economists hate Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes and Henry George, all three proposed three different sets of economic theories that work to a degree, but at the cost of the 1%). You have to remember spending is what drives any economy. For that reason if one person earned a billion dollars that earning has little affect on the economy. On the other hand a billion workers getting an extra dollar has a HUGE affect on the economy, for they will spend that billion dollars, and SPENDING money is what drives the economy, not holding it is a bank (or in a saving account or even paying off debt). Thus anything that cut wages on the law end of the economy has a HUGE negative affect on the economy, even if the 1% gets more then what the bottom lost. On the other hand. most economists work for the 1% and justify any increase to the 1% even when it hurts the economy as a whole.
Side Note: Karl Marx is now out of favor do to the fall of the Soviet Union. Karl Marx was correct on two things and wrong on a third. First Karl Marx demonstrated how classic capitalism will grow and then destroy itself (Karl Marx relied on Adam Smith and took Adam Smith's economic theory to their logical conclusion). Karl Marx has also been proven correct in how revolutions occur, the CIA follows Karl Marx's teachings to the letter when it comes to causing a revolution (or preventing one). Karl Marx's failure was trying to determine what will replace Capitalism. Marx himself says it will take 500 years to come up with a replacement, most Marxists did not want to wait that long so developed ways to speed up the process, the problem was you ended up with excessive bureaucracy and military spending, both of which ended up killing the Soviet Union.
Henry George is interesting, he advocated the taxing of real estate only (and NOT improvements on the Real Estate, just the land itself, i.e. the lot your home sits on, not the home itself). George is hated by the 1% almost as much as Marx, for the 1% knows when it comes to value of land, location is everything and George wanted to tax any value of the land produced by its location as opposed to improvements to that land close to 100%. George rationale was that such value was NOT a product of who owned the land, but what others did around it and since most such improvement was done by the State, the State should get the value of such improvements.
More on Henry George:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George
More on Keynes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,036 posts)happyslug
(14,779 posts)And most white immigrants immigrated for econmic reasons NOT for "Freedom". The reason for the slave trade was to get cheap labor, which was also the reason for indentured servitude of the 1700s and mass immigration of the late 1800s. Thus the reason for all three were the same, to keep wages low.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,036 posts)Blackjackdavey
(178 posts)with German relations, I can tell you, normal Germans don't share your point of view. Your view is widely held by American xenophobes however, which my German family members are unable to wrap their head around. It is actually a bit embarrassing as they paint us (me) with the broad brush of American attitudes toward race at our family reunions.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Turbineguy
(37,365 posts)".... insults to alleged leaders..."?
Zira
(1,054 posts)Odin2005
(53,521 posts)katsy
(4,246 posts)Coward.
And fuck turkey and their chancellor's nutfuckery.
I'm so disappointed in merkel.
Javaman
(62,534 posts)Coventina
(27,172 posts)Democat
(11,617 posts)They should arrest all comedians immediately to be safe.
Mary Mac
(323 posts)Nt.
romanic
(2,841 posts)She is a coward and a danger to her own people and country. Fuck her and fuck Erdogan.
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,364 posts)So, yeah, she's pandering. She's a politician. We have those, too.
Mary Mac
(323 posts)I now believe Europe cannot be overrun with migrants and refugees who don't share the core values of Europe. No good deed of Merkel's will go unpunished.