Germany has caused an uproar after saying it would investigate a comedian for criticizing the leader of Turkey.
The German comedian, Jan Boehmermann, read a comedic poem about Erdogan on TV that angered the Turkish president, who Boehmermann accused of “repressing minorities, kicking Kurds and slapping Christians.”
Erdogan filed a criminal complaint against Boehmermann. Boehmermann is now under police protection, and Germany has said it will examine whether Boehmermann broke the law by reading the poem.
Twitter users were less sympathetic to Erdogan’s concerns than the German government, though.
“That a western govt would consider, even for a moment, the import of such authoritarianism... beggars belief,” said one user.
“Free speech under attacked [sic] all over the world. In Germany a comedian can’t even tell a joke to his audience,” said another.
Political cartoonist Joep Bertrams drew a cartoon of Erdogan smiling to show a jail cell behind his lips.
Humor #erdogan #JanBoehmermann pic.twitter.com/MExdvBGpfN
— Joep Bertrams (@joepbertrams) April 13, 2016
Others pointed out that, ironically, Erdogan has only increased the amount of people who will hear the comedic poem making fun of him.
“One of his cronies really needs to send him the Wikipedia page for the Streisand effect,” said one, referring to the phenomenon where the act of trying to hide something actually increases its visibility (Barbara Streisand once sued to have photographs of her Malibu mansion removed from the public domain, and in doing so accidentally increased how many people saw the photos.)
Some Twitter users in the US, seeing the incident as an example of political correctness run amuck, used the news as one more reason why a certain reality TV star should be elected US president. “Another reason to vote Trump before this mindset reaches Congress,” wrote Hal Ward.
--HS
