Böhmermann affair
Explicitly acknowledging this experiment to be deliberately offensive and "forbidden", Böhmermann went on to present a poem that not only harshly criticized Erdoğan for his human rights record, but was also liberally seasoned with profanity.
Intense criticism followed the Chancellor's decision, with speculation that she decided to allow the prosecution in order to protect Germany's refugee deal with Turkey.
[5] Böhmermann, among other things, called Erdoğan "a man beating girls", and said that he is keen on "fucking goats" and he would "suppress minorities, kick the Kurds, hit Christians while watching child pornography.
The proceedings launched by the prosecutor's office for "insulting of organs and representatives of foreign states" were based on principle §103[16] and §104[17] in the German penal code.
[18] After a phone call with the Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, Chancellor Angela Merkel criticised the poem as "intentionally hurtful" ("bewusst verletzend"),[9] and prosecutors in Mainz planned to consult the federal Justice Ministry on whether to launch criminal proceedings.
[22] On 22 April Merkel herself called her criticism of the poem a "mistake" about which she was "annoyed", while defending the decision to allow criminal proceedings against Böhmermann.
[2] During a Bundestag debate on 12 May 2016, the CDU MP Detlef Seif read the whole poem to demonstrate that it is an insult of the Turkish president, causing the outrage of several other MPs.
[23] On 10 April the CEO of publishing house Axel Springer SE, Mathias Döpfner, made a plea for "solidarity with Jan Böhmermann".
[25] The Washington Post editorial board criticized the German government's reaction in a featured commentary titled "Will Ms. Merkel defend free expression?"
The editors held both the "anachronistic law" and the "morally dubious" refugee deal with Turkey accountable for what they considered Merkel's countenancing of "Erdoğan's bullying inside Germany".
[27] Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis wrote on Twitter: "Europe first lost its soul (agreement with Turkey on refugees), now it is losing its humour.
Among them were the actors Matthias Brandt, Katja Riemann, Jan Josef Liefers, Peter Lohmeyer, the TV presenter Klaas Heufer-Umlauf, writer Thea Dorn and pianist Igor Levit.
"Discussions about and criticism of Jan Böhmermann's Erdoğan poem belong in the newspaper arts sections of the country and not in a courtroom in Mainz", they wrote.
[34] A 20 April 2016 Dagbladet editorial said that "People in Norway have been appalled that the German chancellor Angela Merkel has brought to life a dormant law to help Turkey's president (...) Therefore we support the initiative from SV-politicians Audun Lysbakken, Bård Vegar Solhjell and Heikki Holmås to remove a similar dormant law from the Norwegian penal code.
[38][39] The filming of upcoming editions of Neo Magazin Royale was suspended until May 2016 due to "massive media reporting and the focus on the programme and the presenter".
"I would like to live in a country where the exploration of the limits of satire is allowed, desired and the subject of a civil society debate", he wrote on Twitter.
[40] Furthermore, Böhmermann engaged the well-known media lawyer Christian Schertz, who criticized Merkel and the German federal government among others for not respecting the separation of powers in Germany.
