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German jailed in Turkey on terrorism charges

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His family claimed Patrick K. was on a hiking holiday, Turkey said he was fighting for the Kurdish YPG militia. Now a court in Sirnak has sentenced the German man to over six years in prison.

A Turkish court on Friday sentenced a German man to six years and three months in prison for membership of a terrorist organization. In addition, he received a further suspended sentence of one year and eight months in jail for entering a military exclusion zone.

Since last year, a number of German citizens have been detained in Turkey, putting serious strain on relations between Berlin and Ankara.

Details of the case

  • Patrick K. was arrested near the Turkish-Syrian border on March 14.
  • Turkish authorities charged him with being a member of the YPG, which Turkey classifies as a terrorist group along with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
  • Local authorities also reportedly said that Patrick K. confessed to wanting to join PYD/YPG and that he’d served for several years in the German military.
  • Turkish officials have not revealed the circumstances under which Patrick K. confessed, nor have they said if an independent interpreter was present.
  • His family said that the 29-year-old was in the area to go hiking. At the time of his arrest, the Bundeswehr told DW that Patrick K. was never a member of the German military.
  • The court hearing on Friday lasted under an hour, according to Patrick K.’s lawyer. His trial only began three weeks ago.

Conflicting accounts: Turkish authorities claim to have found an email that Patrick K. sent to the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG), the armed faction of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), according to German public broadcaster ARD, citing the Turkish indictment. In the email he allegedly offered to fight for the group in exchange for help. The case was based on the testimony of Patrick K.’s cellmate, who allegedly recognized the German man. The witness claimed to have seen Patrick K. in a YPG uniform working as a doctor at a hospital in Syria in January this year. There was no evidence in the indictment, however, that shows that Patrick K. traveled to Syria.

Patrick K.’s family concerned for his health

The 29-year-old’s family back in Germany were shocked by the prison sentence, maintaining that the charges against him were baseless.

“Patrick was convicted for nothing, that was an awful surprise,” one of his friends told news agency DPA.

Ahead of Friday’s court decision, Patrick K.’s mother told DPA that she was concerned for her son’s health, saying that he’s currently suffering from an ear infection and has lost three teeth. He’s been detained for the last seven months in a prison in the eastern Turkish province of Elazig.

Patrick K.’s lawyer, Huseyin Bilgi said his client was “very sad” about the sentence.

A German foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed to Reuters news agency that Patrick K. had been sentenced.

German minister in Turkey: The verdict coincided with German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier’s two-day visit to Turkey. Altmaier underscored Berlin’s commitment to “compliance with human rights and press freedom,” but shied away from directly calling out the Turkish government. During talks in Ankara on Friday, Altmaier said that he wants to discuss Patrick K.’s case in sideline discussions with Turkish officials.

‘Political arrests’: In the aftermath of a failed coup attempt in 2016, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government jailed thousands of people under sweeping anti-terror laws. Several dual German-Turkish nationals were also detained, including Welt correspondent Deniz Yücel, human rights activist Peter Steudtner, as well as journalist  Mesale Tolu. Many have since been released from prison in Turkey, but still face charges there. At least five German nationals are still detained in Turkey on what Berlin describes as “political reasons.”

What happens next: Patrick K. is planning on appealing the Turkish court’s sentence, his lawyer said.

German population with immigrant background reaches new peak in 2017

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According to the latest “micro-census,” the number of people in Germany with immigrant roots rose to 19.3 million last year. Although society is becoming more diverse, many have argued that it’s not become more open.

The number of people with foreign roots living in Germany reached a new peak last year, according to the results of a “micro-census” that was published on Wednesday.

Turkish heritage tops list

Out of the estimated 19.3 million people with immigrant backgrounds, 14 percent of them had Turkish roots, followed by 11 percent with Polish roots, 7 percent with Russian roots, 6 percent with Kazakh roots and 4 percent with Romanian roots.

For the first time, Destatis also asked about what languages are most often spoken at home. They found that out of the 24 million households with more than one person, foreign languages are primarily spoken in 2.5 million of them.

Out of those with foreign backgrounds, 13.2 million of them had immigrated to Germany themselves. When asked about their motives for immigrating to Germany, family reasons were the most important factor listed by participants.

According to Destatis, Germany’s Federal Office for Statistics, around 19.3 million people living in Germany have immigrant backgrounds. The figure increased 4.4 percent compared to the figures from the 2016 “micro-census.”

Destatis defines someone with a “migrant background” as a person who was not born in Germany or who has at least one parent who is not a German citizen.

The data also found among those with immigrant backgrounds, 51 percent were German citizens and 49 percent were foreigners.

The annual “micro-census” derives its data from a 1 percent sample of the German population and focuses on people living in private households. Destatis has said that the data on those living in shared accommodation such as asylum-seeker homes and migrant reception centers is likely underrepresented in the study.

German Turks still rooted in the east: study

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A study has found most Turkish Germans feel at home in Germany but maintain a strong connection with Turkey. It comes as Mesut Özil’s decision to quit the national football team sparks an integration debate in Germany.

A study from the Center for Turkish Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany has found that most of the 3 million people with Turkish roots living Germany feel more strongly connected to Turkey than to Germany.

The study was released one day after German footballer Mesut Özil announced he was quitting the national team, citing racism, after he was criticized for meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in May.

What the study found

  • About 89 percent feel they belong “strongly” or “very strongly” to Turkey, and about 81 percent to Germany.
  • About 83 percent feel somewhat or very at home in both Germany and Turkey.
  • 38 percent would not return to Turkey, 15 percent intend to return permanently and 37 percent live between Turkey and Germany.
  • 19.6 percent were strongly interested in German politics, 47 percent had little interest.
  • 33.9 percent were strongly interested in Turkish politics, 30.7 percent weren’t very interested.

The Mesut Özil affair: German football player Mesut Özil announced he was quitting the German football team on Monday, after he came under fire for meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in May. The move saw some German politicians and fans question Özil’s loyalty to Germany. Özil said he was treated as being “different,” saying “I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose.” Following Özil’s announcement, a spokeswomen for German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday said the majority of the about 3 million people with Turkish heritage who live in Germany are well integrated and that people with migrant backgrounds were welcome in Germany.

Turkish politics in Germany: In the June Turkish presidential election this year, nearly two-thirds of votes cast by the Turkish community in Germany went to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which was more than the support he averaged in Turkey. Relations have been strained between Germany and Turkey since a failed coup against Erdogan in 2016 and the subsequent crackdown that followed 

Racism in the classroom: Another study released July 23 by the German University of Mannheim, found prospective teachers gave poorer grades to students with a Turkish name despite their work having the same number of errors as their German counterparts. The study saw 204 teaching students aged 23 grade two identical papers, one half of the group had a paper written by “Max” and the other a paper written by “Murat.” The teaching students derived different grades, with the supposedly Turkish students receiving poorer marks.

law/aw (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)

 

Poland’s Jaroslaw Kaczynski renews call for German WWII reparations

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Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the ruling party in Poland, has again demanded Berlin pay Warsaw World War Two compensation. His comments come two days after his government watered down a controversial Holocaust law.

In an interview with the state-run Polskie Radio on Friday, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the de facto senior politician in Poland, renewed demands for Germany to pay compensation for Poland’s war time losses incurred by Germany.

“This is a Polish-German issue. It was Germany who invaded Poland, murdering millions of people, destroying material goods and we must be compensated for this,” he said.

Kaczynski has been calling for financial reparations from Germany for more than a decade.

In March two PiS politicians said that Poland should demand reparations worth $850 billion (€780 billion) for destroyed property and people killed.

“For many, many years, there has been a defamation campaign offending Poles, completely altering the sense of World War II,” Kaczynski went on. “Today we have started on a route in the opposite direction and I think this road will be difficult and steep … If we did nothing, we would get nothing.”

The context

Kaczynski’s revival of war reparations demands follows Poland watering down a controversial law criminalizing any comments suggesting some Polish people might have helped Germans during the war.The threat of jail terms has now been removed but the law has faced considerable criticism from the US and Israel.

Kaczynski said on Wednesday that the move was because Israeli authorities had “fully confirmed Poland’s position” on Germany’s responsibility for the Holocaust.

Friday’s comments also come as Berlin-Warsaw relations remain fraught over the EU’s migration policy and EU disquiet over the Polish government’s judicial reforms.

They also coincide with rumors that Kaczynski’s recent illness has led to infighting within the party and the government over who could succeed the 69-year old.

No claims filed

However, the Polish government has said it doesn’t want its demands to affect cooperation within the EU and its relationship with Germany and hasn’t yet filed any official claims.

The German government has meanwhile dismissed previous demands, referring to a Polish renunciation of claims in 1953. German parliamentary legal experts said last year that Warsaw had no right to demand reparations.

Poland’s then Communist government waived its right to German post-war compensation in 1953, but in 2017 several government ministers refuted the validity of the waiver.

World War II started with the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and led to deaths of nearly 6 million Polish citizens by the war’s end in 1945, about half of them Jewish.

Mixed feelings

A survey published this week by Körber-Stiftung said that 76 percent of Germans think Berlin should not pay WWII reparations, while Polish opinion on the issue is split, with 40 percent saying Warsaw should not demand compensation from Germany and 46 in favor.

PiS was backed by 37.9 percent in a recent poll, up 4.5 percentage points from May. The party won the 2015 election with a similar share of the vote, becoming the first party in Poland’s post-communist era not to have to govern in a coalition.

jbh/msh (Reuters)

The German stance on Syria: Ready to help, but not militarily

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Chancellor Angela Merkel has shed some light on Germany’s position as tensions flare in Syria. She said Germany stood ready to assist its allies, but that Germany’s military would not be involved.

Angela Merkel twice stated that Germany’s military “will not participate in possible military actions” in Syria during a press conference on Thursday, but stressed that Berlin supported the need to “send a clear signal that the use of chemical weapons” is unacceptable.

“Just doing nothing at all is also difficult,” the chancellor said, adding that if the US, UK and France were to take military action, Germany would seek non-military ways to help.

Merkel also criticized Russia, albeit gently, saying that Moscow blocking a full OPCW investigation into the alleged Syrian chemical weapons attack “does not cast Russia in a positive light.”

The chancellor’s comments followed a bilateral meeting with her Danish counterpart Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who said that Denmark’s stance on the issue was comparable with its neighbor to the south.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said earlier on Thursday that neither France nor the US had yet asked Germany for any assistance in Syria.

“But if we want to maintain the pressure on Russia, then Western partners cannot start going their separate ways,” Maas said.

Transatlantic communication ‘a development that concerns us’

Twice, Merkel was also asked about the language of US President Donald Trump’s tweets, and whether these made diplomacy more difficult. She sidestepped the question in both instances.

But Germany’s new government coordinator for Transatlantic relations, Peter Beyer, told DW that Trump’s unusual style of presidential communication posed “new challenges” for Germany.

“First of all, the United States remain the most important partner of Germany and Europe as a whole on a global scale,” Beyer said. “On the other hand, we see in the past a development that concerns us, that brings a change to how we communicate across the Atlantic as compared to former times. So we’re facing new challenges.”

Beyer described military intervention in Syria as the “ultima ratio,” but said that the “barbaric, inhumane” gas attacks in Douma “need an answer.”

White House steps back, saying all options on table and nothing decided

Trump on Thursday rowed back somewhat from Wednesday’s explosive tweet telling Russia to “get ready” for “nice and new and ‘smart'” missiles.

“Never said when an attack on Syria would take place,” Trump said. “Could be very soon or not so soon at all!”

German politician slams Turks as “camel herders”

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German politician slams Turks

German opposition politician slammed Turkish community as “camel herders” and reminded them of committing the Armenian Genocide, dpa reported.

Andre Poggenburg, a member of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party said the Turks should not speak about history and homeland.

“These caraway traders have the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians weighing them down … and they want to tell us something about history and homeland? They‘re nuts. These camel herders should set off to where they belong,” he said.

His criticism came in response to the statements of Turkish community, which is opposing the concept of a new Home Ministry as proposed in the new German government coalition agreement.

He also lashed out at calls by the country‘s Turkish community for dual citizenship.

Turkey summons German ambassador again Armenian Genocide,

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Turkey summoned Germany’s ambassador Martin Erdmann in Ankara on Monday. Official representative of the German foreign minister Martin Schaefer confirmed the reports. Der Spiegel magazine said Ankara wanted to raise a German parliamentary motion that recognized the Armenian Genocide, Reuters reported. Following adoption of the motion by Bundestag last year, Ankara recalled its ambassador from Berlin. Germany’s foreign ministry said it was the 17th time its envoy Martin Erdmann had been summoned. Last time the envoy was summoned on Saturday over rally in support of PKK that was staged in Cologne.

Turkey capitulate agrees to let German lawmakers visit troops

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turkey,BERLIN – Reuters,

Turkey has agreed to let German lawmakers visit soldiers serving at an air base in Turkey next month as part of a NATO trip, according to a letter from the German foreign minister showed on Aug. 8, after Ankara refused a visit there in July.

A letter from German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel to the head of Germany’s parliamentary defense committee said Turkey had agreed to a NATO proposal for a visit to the air base near Konya on Sept. 8.

Under the plan, NATO’s Deputy General-Secretary Rose Gottemoeller would lead the delegation and take up to seven members of the parliamentary committee with her.

“The Turkish foreign minister has agreed to this proposal,” Gabriel wrote.

Details are reportedly still being worked out about which lawmakers would be included in the visit. Turkey had objected particularly strenuously to participation by members of Germany’s far-left Left party, which Ankara accuses of “supporting terrorists.”

Repeated refusals by Ankara to let lawmakers visit German soldiers at the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey prompted Berlin to relocate those troops to Jordan. Turkey also refused a visit from German MPs to the Konya base planned for mid-July.

Germany’s armed forces are under parliamentary control and Berlin insists lawmakers must have access to them.

On Aug. 7, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Germany of “assisting terrorists” by not responding to files sent from Ankara to Berlin or handing over suspects wanted by the Turkish authorities.

German filmmaker says time spent in Yerevan one of the most memorable in the year

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German filmmaker Fred Kelemen has participated at the Golden Apricot International Festival for three times. At the 14th festival Kelemen has submitted “Sarajevo Songs of Woe” in the feature competition.

“I just love this festival, as I always spend wonderful time here which is thanks to the locals, the country and its hospitality,” Fred Kelemen told reporters at a press conference on Saturday.

Kelemen also praised Golden Apricot Festival, suggesting the event ‘has been warming hearts and souls for years.’

“Even when you are back your blood is still boiling,” the German filmmaker said, adding the time spent in Yerevan is one of the most beautiful and memorable moments in the year.

To note, “Sarajevo Songs of Woe” is a filmic triptych containing of the two tales “Blue Ballad for Lovers” and “Blue Rondo for Survivors” and the documentary middle part “Blue Psalm for Wolves”. They are flowing into each other and so building up a universal mosaic of fragmented life situated in the town of Sarajevo. The camera follows different protagonists and interweaves with their cinematic round-dance of hope and despair, love and death and their quest for a dignified life which is fragilely stretched between the desire for the warmth of love and the coldness of our civilisation’s reality.

German milk cows arrive in Qatar as Saudi boycott continues

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German milk cows arrive in Qatar as Saudi boycott continuesGerman cows have been flown into Qatar to be milked as Saudi Arabia’s blockade of its neighbor continues. The country plans to fly in more cows from the United States and Australia.

Importers delivered 165 Holstein dairy cows – the first of 4,000 bovines set for shipment to Qatar – late Tuesday. Originally from Germany, the cows arrived from Budapest, where they had previously been milked, a spokesman for the Baladna agricultural company told the German press agency dpa.

The company transported the cows from the airport in Qatar’s capital, Doha, to a purpose-built dairy farm that has capacity for 4,000 animals. The Baladna spokesman said the company would import the next group of cows as soon as the next few days and that the dairy cow imports would come from Germany, Australia and the United States.

Last month, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates launched a boycott of Qatar, accusing the country of supporting terrorism and criticizing its ties to Iran, forcing the Persian Gulf emirate to seek new trade routes. In order to supply the population with dairy, which had previously come from Saudi Arabia, Qatar had begun importing products from Turkey.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is in the Middle East in an effort to end the dispute. On Tuesday, he said Qatar’s government had been “reasonable.”