Nancy Faeser, Germany’s interior minister, condemned use of the gesture, saying: "To use the football championships as a platform for racism is completely unacceptable," and the Turkish ambassador was summoned to explain.

A large group of Turkish supporters making their way to the European Championship quarterfinal against the Netherlands made the same nationalistic hand gesture that got Demiral banned from the match, and were dispersed by the police.

[29][30][26] They embrace anti-Semitic conspiracy theories such as those put forward by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and have distributed the Turkish translation of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

[90][91] According to analyst Ankarali Jan, the Grey Wolves have a largely unofficial presence in Turkey's major universities, but their "real power is on the streets, among disaffected poor people in predominantly Turkish Sunni neighbourhoods.

The April 1997 report of the Turkish National Assembly's investigative committee "offered considerable evidence of close ties between state authorities and criminal gangs, including the use of the Grey Wolves to carry out illegal activities.

"[96] In 2008 the Ergenekon trials, a court document revealed that the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) armed and funded Grey Wolves members to carry out political murders.

[14] In 1973 Israeli orientalist Jacob M. Landau wrote that the importance of the Grey Wolves "is attested to by the fact that Türkeş himself assumed responsibility for the formation of these youth groups and assigned the supervision of their training to two of his close associates".

[65] During the political violence between 1976 and 1980, members of the Grey Wolves were involved in numerous assassinations of left-wing and liberal activists, intellectuals, labour organizers, Kurds, officials, and journalists.

[14][113] The Grey Wolves became a "state-approved force" and used attacks on left-wing groups to "cause chaos and demoralization and inflame a climate in which a regime promising law and order would be welcomed by the masses.

[citation needed] The conflict between left-wing and right-wing groups eventually resulted in a military intervention in September 1980 when General Kenan Evren led a coup d'état.

[128] On 20 February 2015, Fırat Yılmaz Çakıroğlu, leader of the Grey Wolves organization in Ege University, was stabbed to death by left-wing and according to some reports, Kurdish nationalist students.

[142] In December 2017 Grey Wolves members, among them the BBP-affiliated Alperen Ocakları, invaded the Hagia Sophia and prayed there in protest against the United States recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel.

[106][144][145] On 24 April 2011, the murder of Sevag Balıkçı, a soldier of Armenian descent in the Turkish Army, was committed by Kıvanç Ağaoglu, who sympathized with Abdullah Çatlı, the late leader of the Grey Wolves.

[169] In March 1995, a coup d'état attempt against President Heydar Aliyev was staged in Baku by paramilitary police chief Rovshan Javadov, Turkish far-right organizations (including the Grey Wolves), and the Azerbaijani opposition.

[170] According to Thomas de Waal, the "shadowy backers of this uprising were never identified but appear to have included rogue elements of the Turkish security establishment and members of the 'Gray Wolves' Bozkurt movement.

"[171] After the coup attempt, Hamidov was jailed, while the Azerbaijani Supreme Court formally abolished the National Democratic Party due to its links to the Turkish Grey Wolves, which it considered to be a terrorist organization.

[175][176] Following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 the Grey Wolves "continued to play a role in radicalizing the dispute with Greek Cypriots by actively engaging in violence on the island.

[181] On 17 October 2003, Murat Kanatlı, Turkish Cypriot journalist and editor of the opposition newspaper Yeniçağ, was "attacked by a group of 20-30 persons belonging to the Grey Wolves" according to the International Press Institute (IPI).

"[203] According to Egypt Today the National Intelligence Organization of Turkey (MİT) "is believed to be recruiting retired military personnel to provide support for armed groups operating in Syria, through the Grey Wolves Brigades.

[209][210][211][212] Youm7, an Egyptian news site picked up a document allegedly issued by the Army of Conquest (Jaish al-Fatah), which claimed that it conspired with the Turkistan Islamic Party and the Grey Wolves in the December 2016 assassination of Andrei Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey.

"[220] In early March 2019, Grey Wolves sympathizers started a campaign on Twitter by sending Chancellor Sebastian Kurz hundreds of photos of people showing the salute.

[227] In 2019, Belgian-Kurdish New Flemish Alliance politician Zuhal Demir reported that posters advertising her candidacy in Maasmechelen had been vandalized with swastikas and the symbol of the Grey Wolves.

[229] According to Direction générale de la sécurité intérieure members of the Grey Wolves partook in a 21 January 2012 demonstration in Paris against the adoption of the bill criminalizing the Armenian genocide denial in France.

[245] Another important organization affiliated with the Grey Wolves are the ATIB (Turkish: Avrupa Türk-İslam Birliği, ATİB; German: Union der Türkisch-Islamischen Kulturvereine in Europa).

[246] During the UEFA Euro 2024 football tournament held in Germany, several Turkish supporters were observed giving the "wolf salute," a hand gesture associated with the Grey Wolves.

As early as 1979 the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy reported that clashes between the Grey Wolves and the Dutch-Turkish Workers Association (HTIB) occurred on May Day celebrations.

[253] On 13 September 2015, an explosion occurred at a Kurdish civil center in Stockholm, Sweden, following clashes between Turks, Kurds and anti-fascists at a rally organized by the Swedish Grey Wolves.

According to Daniel Pipes and Khalid Duran Grey Wolves appear to have been involved in the assassination attempt and write that Ağca "in his own confused way mixed Turkish nationalist sentiments with fundamentalist Islam.

[32][better source needed] According to Peter Dale Scott, the author of the book American War Machine, in 2010 there were drug producing and dealing groups that had clear ties with the Grey Wolves and its affiliated political party, MHP.

"[273] In September 2021 Representative Dina Titus (D-NV) proposed designating the Grey Wolves as a terrorist group through an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).