The Turkish foreign ministry has summoned Germany’s ambassador to Ankara to explain a satirical song broadcast on German TV earlier this month entitled “Erdowi, Erdowo, Erdogan” that poked fun at the country’s president.
The two-minute song, which aired on Germany’s ARD television channel on March 17, accuses Recep Tayyip Erdogan of cracking down on press freedoms and Turkey’s Kurdish minority, and slams the recent deal that saw Ankara agree to accept migrants sent back from the EU in exchange for more than €6bn in aid. It also compares Mr Erdogan with Mickey Mouse, and shows the president trying to ride a horse and falling off.
“He hates the Kurds like the plague, and prefers to bomb them than his fellow believers in IS,” the song says. It is accompanied by images of Turkish police using tear gas and water cannon against demonstrators. “If a journalist writes something he doesn’t like, tomorrow he’ll be in the slammer,” it says.
The song, which was included in a satirical programme called extra 3, also features images of the massive presidential palace Mr Erdogan had built in Ankara. “He lives the high life, the boss from the Bosphorus,” the song says.
Extra 3’s production team continued the joke on Tuesday, showing a picture of Mr Erdogan on its Twitter feed with the caption: “Employee of the month”.
Sources close to the German foreign ministry said the ambassador, Martin Erdmann, had made it clear in his conversation with Turkish officials that “the rule of law, judicial independence and the protection of fundamental freedoms, including freedom of the press, are important values which together must be protected.”
The row over the song comes amid growing concern in Europe about the Turkish government’s assault on media outlets critical of its policies. Earlier this month authorities seized a leading opposition media group and newspaper, Zaman, which had been under investigation over its ties to Fethullah Gulen, an outlawed cleric and former ally of the government.
Mr Erdogan himself is famously allergic to satire. Since August last year when he was elected president, nearly 2,000 cases have been opened against people suspected of insulting the Turkish leader, the justice ministry reported earlier this month.
A court last autumn tried a Turkish doctor for sharing images comparing Mr Erdogan to Gollum, the character from Lord of the Rings.
News of the summons to Germany’s ambassador, Mr Erdmann, first reported by Spiegel Online, came amid a diplomatic row over the trial of two Turkish journalists charged with espionage.
Ankara is furious that the trial was attended by the consuls-general of several European countries, including the UK. The Turkish foreign ministry contacted the countries’ embassies to communicate its unease, while Turkey’s justice minister, Bekir Bozdag, accused the diplomats of perverting the course of justice by attending the trial. A pro-government newspaper referred to the diplomats as “crusaders”.
Can Dundar, the editor of Cumhuriyet, a secularist daily, and Erdem Gul, the paper’s Ankara bureau chief, face life in prison for documenting covert Turkish arms shipments to Syria in a series of articles published last summer.
On Monday, Mr Erdogan took aim at British consul general Leigh Turner, who had tweeted a photo of himself alongside one of the journalists.
“The consul general of a certain country goes to the trial of a journalist charged with espionage, to support him,” Mr Erdogan said. “Moreover, he gets a picture taken cheek to cheek and has it published. If this person can go on working here, it’s because of our generosity and hospitality. If it were another country, they wouldn’t let a diplomat who exhibits this kind of behaviour stay there a day more.”
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Turkey protests to Berlin over Erdogan TV spoof
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