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BERLIN. — Two thirds of Germans oppose Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to allow prosecutors to pursue a case against a German comedian who mocked Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan, a poll published yesterday showed. Merkel announced her decision on Friday after Erdogan demanded that Germany press charges against Jan Boehmermann after he recited a sexually crude satirical poem about the Turkish leader on German public broadcaster ZDF on March 31.
A section of the German criminal code prohibits insults against foreign leaders but leaves it to the government to decide whether to authorise prosecutors to pursue such cases. This put Merkel in an awkward position as she has been the driving force behind a European Union deal with Turkey to stem the flow of refugees into Europe. Yesterday’s survey by pollster Emnid for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper found that 66 percent of those questioned opposed Merkel’s decision to allow prosecutors to pursue the case. — Reuters
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