Christian Lindner an RAF terrorist and Recep Tayyip Erdogan a sodomite? Jan Böhmermann often causes controversy with his jokes – not everyone likes it, as a new survey clearly shows.
Two thirds of all citizens find the satirist Jan Böhmermann “not funny”. This was announced by the opinion research institute Civey for the current issue of the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”. According to the representative survey, a full 66 percent of Germans should not really be able to laugh at Böhmermann’s jokes. Another eleven percent of the 2,500 participants stated that they did not know the 41-year-old or were unsure.
Jan Böhmermann is the host of “ZDF Magazin Royale” and often causes controversial discussions with his sense of humor, such as a tweet a few weeks ago. He shared a poster modeled in the style of a public manhunt for the left-wing extremist Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorists. Among other things, FDP Finance Minister Christian Lindner and his wife Franca Lehfeldt were photographed, as well as the “Welt” editor-in-chief Ulf Poschardt and the virologist Hendrik Streeck.
The entertainer was best known for the TV show “Böhmermann Affair” due to his “slanderous poem” about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In it he accused Erdogan of sexual practices such as pedophilia and sodomy in drastic terms. The matter caused a great stir, led to a public debate about satire and freedom of expression and strained German-Turkish relations. Böhmermann even got a criminal complaint from the president himself.