The Turkish President reacts sensitively to a comparison by Bundestag Deputy Kubicki. The FDP politician calls Erdogan a “sewer rat” because of his refugee policy. A criminal complaint from Ankara has no consequences. The public prosecutor sees no crime.
The statements made by Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appear to have no criminal consequences for the time being. The public prosecutor’s office in Hildesheim sees no reason for investigations, the “Spiegel” reported, citing an official letter from the authority at the end of November. Erdogan’s lawyer wants to appeal against the decision. At an event in the run-up to the Lower Saxony state elections, the FDP politician described the Turkish president as a “sewer rat”. He accused Erdogan of using refugees as leverage against the West.
“In the absence of sufficient factual evidence” for a criminal offense, “the proceedings were discontinued accordingly,” quoted the “Spiegel” from the letter from the public prosecutor’s office. This did not want to pursue a criminal complaint by Erdogan, who had accused Kubicki of insult and defamation. According to the report, the prosecutor responsible wrote that the right to freedom of expression outweighs Erdogan’s “right to personal honor” in this case. Because of the outstanding position of the Turkish head of state, “the limits of permissible expression of opinion in relation to his person are to be drawn much wider” than in the case of private individuals. Although the word “sewer rat” is a “sharp and also very exaggerated criticism”, it has an “objective connection” to the refugee issue. It is not clear that Kubicki was “simply about making contempt” of Erdogan.
Erdogan does not want to accept the decision. His Cologne lawyer Mustafa Kaplan told the “Spiegel” that he had already lodged a complaint with the Celle public prosecutor’s office. Kaplan sharply criticized the Hildesheim investigators. It was “obvious that irrelevant considerations, namely political ones, were decisive in this decision”.
In Kaplan’s ad on Erdogan’s behalf, it was said that the term “sewer rat” should be understood to mean that Erdo?an was a person “who is seen as morally neglected, morally degraded and disgusting”. Kubicki is not concerned with factual criticism, but solely with defamation. Kubicki had defended his language. A “little sewer rat” is a “small, cute, yet clever and devious creature”. It also appears as a children’s story.
