Incident at a press conference: Germany rejects the critics of Erdogan

"Freedom for journalists in Turkey" – with this slogan on a t-shirt, the spokesman of the Yigit government had caused an incident at a press conference with Merkel and Erdogan. Now he is expelled.

The Turkish journalist and government critic, Ertugul Adil Yigit, is due to leave Germany in mid-January. He made himself known during a protest action at the Federal Chancellery.

The incident occurred at a press conference of Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the end of September. He was wearing a t-shirt with the inscription "Gazetecilere Özgürlük – The freedom of journalists in Turkey". As for the unrest, the German security forces intervened and took Yigit out of the hall.

Related to the incident?

Yigit sees a connection between this action and the order of expulsion, which he received after receiving information from the dpa news agency on Friday. "It goes together, it can not be different," said Yigit. He lives according to his own data for 36 years in Germany. He will act against the decision.

Last year, he had already obtained a similar decision after several extensions of his residence permit. At that time, the head of the immigration authorities of Hamburg had promised him to find a solution, said Yigit. Only a month after his protest at the Chancellery, the extension of his residence permit will be rejected.

Chronicler of "Taz"

In the expulsion decision of the Hamburg-Mitte District Center of 22 October, which is the DPA, it is said that Yigit must have left by 22 January 2019, otherwise he would be expelled at his expense. Like the reasons for the expulsion, the authorities' staff say that he is unpaid and that the "family cohabitation" with his German children no longer exists.

First, the "Taz" reported the deportation. Yigit writes for her as a columnist. Yigit also publishes the anti-government online newspaper Avrupa Postasi. "Of course I'm afraid to be expelled," he said. "Journalists are silenced in Turkey."

In an interview with "Zeit", Yigit said at the end of September that he received many congratulations for his action on the part of Turkey – but also threats: "I am an agent of the Germans, (…) write me on Facebook, "Yigit said in the interview. "A lot of vile insults, it gets more and more."

Procedure of the file defended during the press conference

Government spokesman Steffen Seibert defended the case at the September press conference. "We hold it at press conferences at the Chancellery like the German Bundestag: no demonstrations or rallies of political interest," he wrote on Twitter. "This is totally independent of whether it is a legitimate concern or not."

The Association of German Journalists (DJV) warned the federal government to "put its own rules in order". DJV spokesman Hendrik Zörner told the evangelical press service: "The fact that journalists are not allowed to wear protest t-shirts during press conferences is inscribed in the period of the screeds and settlers, but not in the 21st century. "