"Erdogan is not welcome in Berlin!"

Wednesday, October 31st, 2012 - from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm

Western side of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) supports a call of Kurds, Alevis, Ezidis, Assyrian Aramaeans and Armenians living in Germany – and their friends – to take part in a demonstration with the slogan: "Erdogan is not welcome in Berlin!"

"It is a scandal that the German federal government sees the Turkish administration as an ally, while Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan openly continues a policy of discrimination and oppression against ethnic and religious minorities," criticizes the STP's expert on questions regarding the Middle East, Kamal Sido. "Germany must support the side of the Kurds, Alevis, Ezidis, the Assyrian Aramaeans and the Armenians – and demand equal rights regarding their language, their culture, their freedom of expression and their freedom of religion."

The STP also warns that Erdogan – whom many Europeans consider to be a moderate Muslim – personally makes use of every opportunity to insult non-Muslims and even Muslim Kurds. According to the human rights organization, the Turkish Prime Minister denigrated the religious community of the Ezidis during a conference in Elazig on October 21. He said: "They (the Kurds) have nothing to do with the creator. It is clear where the terrorists belong. They are Zoroastrians. They admit this themselves, by talking about Yezidism." The cause for Erdogan's rant was a conference on October 18, 2012, in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in the southeast of the country – organized by local politicians of the Kurdish BDP party, who invited Ezidis from all over the world.

The STP accuses Erdogan of persecuting Kurdish journalists, politicians, human rights activists and Turkish members of the opposition – and of having caused a real wave of arrests against them since 2009. Hundreds of Kurdish political prisoners, including journalists, leaders and members of the Turkish human rights organization IHD as well as elected representatives, are on hunger strike – some of them for more than 40 days already. They are trying to draw attention to the inhumane conditions in Turkish prisons. Around 7,000 Kurds are locked up in Turkish prisons for political reasons. Without any evidence, they are being accused of having joined the banned Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) or of denigrating Turkishness.