Erdoğan is a soppy fool with a fase like a pig’s bum
Apparently Erdoğan gets to tell Merkel to prosecute German citizens for making jokes about Erdoğan. Philip Oltermann in the Guardian:
Angela Merkel has been criticised by members of her cabinet after acceding to a request from Ankara to prosecute a comedian who read out an offensive poem about the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The German chancellor insisted her government’s decision did not amount to a verdict on whether Jan Böhmermann was guilty or not, but should be understood as a reaffirmation of the judiciary’s independence.
Oh please. The issue is whether such a thing should be prosecuted in the first place, not whether the comedian is “guilty” or not.
“In a constitutional democracy, weighing up personal rights against freedom of the press and freedom of expression is not a matter for governments, but for public prosecutors and courts,” Merkel said in a press conference on Friday.
What personal rights is she talking about? Is she saying Erdoğan has a personal right not to be joked about in Germany? What other rights could be at issue here?
Merkel was left with the final decision on whether Germany’s state prosecutor should start proceedings against Böhmermann after Erdoğan requested the comedian be prosecuted.
Under an obscure section of Germany’s criminal code, prosecution for insults against organs or representatives of foreign states requires both a notification from the offended party and an authorisation from the government.
Golly. So German law allows for prosecution of insults against organs or representatives of foreign states. Why?
Merkel and other ministers confirmed reports that there had been disagreements on how to handle the Böhmermann affair between ministers within her coalition government.
The foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said Social Democrat[ic] ministers, including himself and the justice minister Heiko Maas, had been overruled by Merkel in allowing the prosecution to proceed. “It is our view that the prosecution should not have been authorised,” Steinmeier said. “Freedom of the press, freedom of expression and artistic freedom are the highest goods requiring protection in our constitution.”
There are also issues of freedom of information, freedom of inquiry, freedom to hear and see and read. It’s not just that the comedian should be free to “insult” foreign heads of state, it’s also that German citizens should be free to listen to comedians who do that kind of thing. The German people have an interest in this as well as the German performing and writing class.
“I consider this to be the wrong decision,” said Thomas Oppermann, leader of the Social Democratic party’s parliamentary faction. “Prosecuting satire on the basis of a lèse-majesté law is not appropriate to the modern age.”
(Side bar: There we go, they got it right that time – Social Democratic party, not Social Democrat party.)
Quite so. One wonders why they have a lèse-majesté law on the books at all.
The little-used paragraph of the German legal code that had allowed the Turkish president to request the prosecution is likely to be scrapped in the aftermath of the affair. Merkel said on Friday that she considered the law unnecessary, and that legal steps would be taken towards deleting it from the penal code within the next two years.
Under section 103 of the criminal code, insults against organs or representatives of foreign states are punishable with up to three years in prison, or three months to five years if a court judges the insult to be slanderous.
Several opposition parties, including the Greens and Alternative für Deutschland, had called for the law to be scrapped in the wake of the scandal.
Well good, but in the meantime – how ridiculous to prosecute Böhmermann.
The poem was read in a short clip on a late-night programme screened on the German state broadcaster ZDF at the end of last month. Böhmermann sat in front of a Turkish flag beneath a small, framed portrait of Erdoğan, reading out a poem that accused the Turkish president of, among other things, “repressing minorities, kicking Kurds and slapping Christians”.
The scene was broadcast shortly after it emerged that Turkey had demanded the deletion of a satirical song from a German comedy show, extra3, and Böhmermann’s poem was deliberately framed as a test of the boundaries of satire.
Throughout his reading, the comedian is advised by another comedian impersonating a media lawyer, who tells him this poem is precisely the sort of thing that does not qualify as satire and is therefore illegal.
Definitely. Heads of state should always be immune from criticism and satire. Hail Caesar.
Or maybe sieg heil!
My four cents:
I just assumed this “obscure” law dates to post-naziism days as an attempt to curtail jingoistic nationalism.
That sounds nice, but these words fly in the face of the fact that the executive branch ordered the judicial branch to take this case up. Is the judicial branch independantly able to decide which cases to take up or fucking isn’t it?
*ahem*
There is a possibility of a Trump presidency.
He’s the lawsuit type.
Germany! Don’t go down the slippery slope! If he gets power, you will NEED to mock him. Heck, sane Americans would gladly chip in on a Kickstarter for you guys to do your own version of the Charlie Chaplin Hitler send-up.
@Holms. It seems this law dated back to the Kaiser. Germany in those days was a good deal more repressive. It seems it is part of this particular law that the executive gives permission to the judiciary, who may refuse to prosecute anyway. It does sound bizarre.
Britain’s Spitting Image in the 1980s would have lost half its material if it couldn’t have grossly insulted foreign leaders (or leader really, Ronald Reagan). George W Bush used to get it as well. Obama is not really material for comedians.
I don’t have a big problem with Merkel’s decision. The situation she found herself in didn’t allow for a good answer. If she had said no, that would have meant that the executive branch could in certain circumstances stop the judicial branch from investigating. That would be a breach of the important principle of the seperation of powers.
You can argue that there never should have been such a law and I agree. But when there is such a law, the executive powers shouldn’t be those deciding when it is to be invoked and when not. So yes judiciary’s independence is part of the issue too.
A bit beside the point, but Merkel’s family background in the former East Germany raises questions. I’ve read that her father was so well placed in the régime that Merkel’s family had the use of two automobiles and lived in relative luxury. What did they do to obtain the usage two cars at a time when almost no one in East Germany even owned a motorbike?
You don’t obtain such privileges unless you do some pretty nasty things.
“Merkel said on Friday that she considered the law unnecessary, and that legal steps would be taken towards deleting it from the penal code within the next two years.”
If she really viewed the law as unnecessary she could have made a statement NOW saying that the law is obsolete and will not be supported, therefore there will be no prosecution under Paragraph 103.
Axxyaan: “If she had said no, that would have meant that the executive branch could in certain circumstances stop the judicial branch from investigating.”
I disagree. It would have meant that in this instance there would have been no prosecution under a law that Merkel herself calls obsolete. Instead, Merkel is forcing the judicial branch to investigate. Is that better? Erdogan has already filed a civil suit against Böhrmermann. That should be enough. What Merkel did was take affirmative action against a satirist in support of a prosecution that could land him jail for two years. Even the Justice Minister says she was wrong.
Her decision is widely seen as caving in to Erdogan in support of the ‘refugee exchange program’. I don’t see how anyone can see it differently, really.
@Gary,
As far as I understand the law, Merkel doesn’t force the judicial branch to investigate, she allows it to investigate. The law under discussion needs the goverments fiat before the judicial branch can investigate. She is allowing the justice department to start an inquiry.
People who state that she is forcing the judicial branch to investigate and that she took affirmative action are spinning it that way, because they don’t agree with this decision. And yes in this case that includes her coalition partner the SPD that delivers the Justice Minister Heiko Maas.
And whether she views the law as unnecessary or not is irrelevant. The executive branch shouldn’t tell the judicial branch not to investigate something because it finds the law unnecessary. It is for the legeslative branch to repeal a law, should it find the law unnecessary.
“As far as I understand the law, Merkel doesn’t force the judicial branch to investigate, she allows it to investigate.”
You’re right on that count. I should have said ‘enabled’ rather than ‘forced’.
“People who state that she is forcing the judicial branch to investigate and that she took affirmative action are spinning it that way, because they don’t agree with this decision.”
The law requires action before the prosecution begins. To say that Merkel took action is not spin, but fact.
“The executive branch shouldn’t tell the judicial branch not to investigate something because it finds the law unnecessary.”
But the law itself requires that a decision be made to either allow or disallow. It’s hypocritical to say that the law is anachronistic, and the then use the same law to allow prosecution. And, as I said before, there is a civil case already open that doesn’t require permission from the government.
@Gary,
Yes the law itself requires that. Which means the law violates the principle of the separation of powers. The only way Merkel could respond in a way that would respect that principle was by removing the hurdle this law had lain in the path of the judicial branch and allow that branch to investigate without the interference of the executive branch.
If you prefer Merkel would have decided differently, I can understand. I just don’t think one can argue that judiciary’s independence isn’t part of the issue.