Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIMINAL

Swedish woman released after Turkey protest

A Swedish woman arrested during demonstrations on Istanbul's Taksim Square on Saurday has been released by Turkish police.

Published: 2 July 2013 12:42 CEST
Swedish woman released after Turkey protest

The woman was arrested on Friday and taken to Vatan police station in Istanbul where she remained until her release on Monday.

According to a Turkish news report, the woman – who is a journalism student and had travelled to Turkey for a vacation – was alleged to have insulted the hard-pressed Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The 24-year-old however argued that she couldn’t possibly have chanted the slogans, in Turkish with another group of demonstrators, as she can’t speak the language.

The Swede’s lawyer Burak Mengü told the Hurriyet Daily News that his client is a journalism student at Stockholm University and was in Istanbul to observe the protests which began on May 28th following the break up of a peaceful protest to protect nearby Gezi Park.

Thousands returned to the square on Saturday evening to demand justice for a demonstrator who was killed by police fire.

The protests have continued into July and are now a regular feature of several Turkish cities, including the capital Ankara despite police crackdowns and warnings from the government.

According to the interior ministry some 2.5 million people took part during the first three weeks of the protests.

The Local/pvs

Follow The Local on Twitter

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

ISRAEL

Germany’s Chancellor Merkel warns on anti-Semitism ahead of Gaza protests

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday warned against any show of anti-Semitic or racist behaviour ahead of expected weekend pro-Palestinian rallies in the wake of days of fighting in the Middle East.

Published: 22 May 2021 15:55 CEST
Updated: 23 May 2021 10:15 CEST
Germany's Chancellor Merkel warns on anti-Semitism ahead of Gaza protests
German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a press conference in the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, on May 21st, 2021. Michael Sohn / POOL / AFP

Several German cities saw pro-Palestinian demonstrations during the deadly 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement which controls the Gaza Strip, prompting Merkel to issue a call for calm.

READ ALSO: Germany slams ‘anti-Semitic’ demos and Hamas ‘terrorist attacks’

“Those who bear hatred towards Jews in the street, those who incite racial hatred put themselves outside our Basic Law,” Merkel declared in her weekly podcast.
 
“Such acts must be punished severely,” she insisted.

Merkel noted that Germany’s constitution “guarantees the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. But it offers no place for attacks on people of a different confession, no place for violence, racism or denigration” of others and their beliefs.
 
German police made some 60 arrests last Saturday while some 100 officers were hurt as a pro-Palestinian rally in Berlin turned violent.

Some participants at marches in towns across Germany shouted anti-Semitic slogans, which Merkel blasted as “unacceptable”. Others burned Israeli flags
and, in one case, stoned the entrance to a synagogue.

More demonstrations in support of the Palestinians were scheduled for this weekend, in Berlin and in other cities.

On Saturday, a Jew from Berlin filed a complaint to say he had been attacked overnight by three unidentified men, police said.

The 41-year-old man, who was wearing a kippa at the time, said he was first insulted, then hit in the face, before his attackers fled the scene.

The authorities in Germany are worried about a resurgence of anti-Semitism from the far-right, notably since the October 2019 attempted attack against a
synagogue in the eastern city of Halle carried out by neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers.

The growing Jewish community in Germany numbers in the hundreds of thousands, many of them from the former Soviet Union.

SHOW COMMENTS