...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire...
’s foreign ministry on Wednesday condemned the arrest of two journalists working for a
The English edition of Sabah reported on Wednesday that the newspaper’s German representative Ismail Erel and European edition’s chief editor Cemil Albay were briefly arrested by Frankfurt police earlier in the day.
"Police also searched the Sabah offices in Frankfurt and seized Erel and Albay’s computers and mobile phones," added the news outlet.
The
"We consider the outright detention of these press members by the German authorities without even requesting their statements as a deliberate act right after the successfully held first round of the Presidential Elections and the 28th Term Parliamentary Elections," read the statement, referring to Sunday’s vote in which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its nationalist allies secured a parliamentary majority but President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...failed to win over 50 percent of the votes. The second round of the presidential polls will take place on May 28.
German Ambassador to Ankara Jurgen Schulz was summoned by Turkey’s foreign ministry before the journalists were released, according to state media.
Sabah claimed that the journalists were arrested after two alleged members of the Fethullah Gülen
... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world. Gülen and Erdogan used to be really good friends, but only one of them could be sultan, and Gülen lost...
Movement, which is accused by Ankara of orchestrating the 2016 failed coup attempt against Erdogan, filed a lawsuit against them.
Sabah is affiliated to the pro-Erdogan Turkuvaz Media Group which includes dozens of TV channels, radios and newspapers.
Berlin has yet to comment on the arrests.
"German authorities could have invited journalists and directed their questions about this complaint. Instead of this, they arrested them and seized their mobile phones and laptops," Fatih Zingal, a lawyer representing Sabah, told
Diplomatic tensions between Ankara and Berlin over freedom of speech are not new.
Germany in 2019 slammed Turkey for rejecting to issue accreditations to two German journalists.
Turkey has been widely criticized for crackdowns on Kurdish journalist at home, accusing them of having ties to the Kurdish rebels.
Turkey is among the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) list of top five jailers of journalists for the year 2022.